Sector 12 and the Art of Falling

By Joseph Kainz

It’s a hard life being a Frontier Corps Ranger in Sector 12. Operating outside human-controlled space, dealing every day with hostile alien governments, criminals, anti-Frontier Corps paramilitary groups and the like while serving simultaneously as soldier, scout, operative, spy and roving law enforcement officer. Still Red (or Rab, or Rubicon, or a lot of other less polite names,) manages to stay on top of things. Sure his methods might be just a mite, err, dynamic, garnering (wholly baseless) charges of being terminally insane, but at least he’s always gotten the job done. So far. His current assignment might break that streak. A Frontier planet is the victim of extremely barbaric raiders, and the Ranger they’ve sent a distress call to is unavailable. In order to fulfill his mission Red might have to be polite to the settlers, maintain cordial relations, and worst of all, perhaps even compromise here and there. To die trying no longer seems like the worst possible outcome.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Lulu Publishing Services
• Release date: Jan 18, 2018
• ISBN: 9781483478463

Book preview

Justin

PROLOGUE

I don’t know if you’ve ever shot a man in the dick. I have, probably more often than you would expect (and not just because I’m not the greatest shot.) Even with that much experience though, I have to say that this was the first time doing so saved my life.

As you might expect my action was extremely efficacious in getting the man’s attention. Since this took place in a bar in the less reputable part of town discharging my blaster got a fair bit of attention from others too. Everyone apparently felt the sudden urge to shift position, presumably because the weapons in their holsters were poking them and needed to be repositioned.

Now that may have made the bystanders more comfortable but it had the opposite effect on me. Fortuitously at that very moment all the screens in the room lit up with a breaking news report. It said that the culprit in a heinous crime had been identified, and that the authorities were searching for him. Oddly enough, when they showed his face it turned out to be the guy I had just shot. Isn’t that strange?

In a completely unrelated tangent, I love my Star. (This new model in particular. The increased capabilities are fantastic, especially the improvements to range and signal penetration.) I know I’ve said that before, but I really can’t express how great it is to have the ability to jec systems without external tools. I know some of the other Rangers may disagree with my attitude here, and I understand why they feel that way (but they’re still fucking idiots.)

They don’t like the implantation process (especially the brain surgery) or getting used to the new sense it gives you. They think the vigorous self-destruct protocols to prevent subversion or duplication are overly robust. (I certainly disagree with that, and I’m the only one I know of with any first-hand experience in the matter, even if I was dead at the time.) They don’t like the fact that it identifies them as Rangers and makes it impossible for them to ever truly be secure (especially since it can’t be safely removed.)

Not every Ranger feels that way of course, but even many of the good ones are a bit conflicted. They see the necessity of these measures, they just wish there was a less stringent method to achieve the same goals. I don’t feel that way though. I fucking love this thing. So fucking much.

Um…yeah sorry, I got really sidetracked there. Not certain what made me think of that. Doesn’t really have anything to do with what I was talking about. Weird.

Anyway, once my erstwhile audience saw the news report there was another general shuffle as weapons found their way back into holsters. Most of the people here were probably criminals in one form or another but there are some acts even most malefactors find detestable. Besides they weren’t about to start a fire-fight over this shithead. Now that they knew I was targeting him in particular they didn’t much care, to the extent that they ignored his screaming (as best they could) and went back to what they had been doing before.

I let him sit there for about forty seconds or so. If you hope to see deterrent effects you need it to sound really painful. Then I shot him again, this time in the face. After all I wasn’t truly interested in torturing punishing him, I just didn’t want him to be able to repeat his offense. I would have killed him with my first shot except that I was hoping word would get around that certain horrific actions would not be tolerated.

So that was that. I holstered my own weapon, then took one more look around to make certain no one was planning to gun me down on my way out. Seemed clear, which made sense. Aside from the dead man perpetrator and I there weren’t many humans present and no one else much cared what we did to each other, especially if the victim was scum.

Except…why was everyone at that table still staring at me? Before I’d come in here I’d jecced the security scanner, both for recon and so I could disseminate the consequences of this asshole’s crimes. Now I used my access to go back and watch the reactions of these particular people. They’d barely moved when I fired the first time, and they hadn’t moved after the news broadcast came up. Which meant they hadn’t drawn weapons during that whole encounter.

Now shooting a man in the dick tends to evoke powerful reactions (which is why I did it.) So either they really didn’t care (unlikely given that they were staring at me,) they were unarmed (a ludicrous idea in this part of town,) or…I quickly checked the records of the scanner from when I’d first entered the bar. As soon as my back had been turned to them they had all shifted positions.

Well fuck. I’d already holstered my blaster too and I couldn’t redraw it safely given that they probably all had their weapons at the ready. So I did the next best thing. I started to walk out, waited until I was next to this really tall, sort of spindly, spiky stool thing (I really don’t know what kind of alien needs that kind of chair, but he must have been a regular because the craftsmanship on it was impressive.) As I passed I faked a little stumble, catching myself on the bar. When I came back up the stool came with me and I threw it at them as hard as I could.

Now of course I couldn’t throw it hard enough to injure or disable them. I didn’t need to though, I just needed them surprised and inhibited for a dozen precious seconds. Their table was close enough to their chairs (and low enough) that they didn’t have too much freedom of movement, so if they wanted to shoot me quickly they would need to raise their arms above the table and the stool hindered that action. All I had to do was drop down and make a speedy crawl out the door.

Or so I planned. As it turned out I had forgotten one tiny but crucial detail. I only had one arm that remembered how to crawl.

I know it’s been a while, but I’m still getting used to this cybernetic tentacle thing. Sometimes I think my current status is in certain respects worse than when my arm was first blown off. Sure I’m more accustomed to the thing, but sometimes that means I forget how unnatural it is. I forget that it (or my brain manipulating it, take your pick,) only really knows how to do a few select tasks automatically.

Not to say I’m unhappy with it of course. I’m not ungrateful. I know most humans out here in the Kill Zone wouldn’t be able to afford anything near as nice. Truth be told it actually has some capabilities that my remaining real arm doesn’t, and although my sense of touch through it is more like using a tool than actually feeling things that’s okay. Hell, as long as I’m actually looking at it and concentrating on manipulating it the thing is pretty dexterous.

The downside is that I do have to be focusing. If I can’t see what it’s doing I generally can’t control it too well (with the exception of a limited number of programmed responses.) That only gets worse if I’m not thinking specifically about what I want it to do.

So my crawl turned into a lurching slump. Then the unsupported weight of the metal tentacle actually pulled me over and I fell completely. I scrambled to right myself but I was rushing and trying to keep an eye on their progress with the stool so my tentacle wasn’t cooperating too well.

You may get the sense I’m stalling because I don’t want to admit that my brilliant (if I do say so myself) improvisation failed because I forgot I have a tentacle for an arm. That’s not correct. I’m stalling because I don’t want to remember how much it hurt when they shot me after my improvisation failed.

They caught me twice in the back as I clawed my way back to my feet and again as I staggered out the door. It hurt quite a bit so my thinking wasn’t entirely clear, but I knew I wouldn’t have long before they finished untangling themselves and came after me. I certainly couldn’t outrun them like this (not that I likely could have before either.) I needed options.

Fortunately for me, I had a few resources at hand (as it were.) The whole building ran on one data core and I already had access so it was the mere work of a moment to engage the security lock on the door. The door itself wasn’t all that sturdy but the lock might buy me a minute or two before they figured out what was wrong and burned through.

A quick (and also excruciating) look around confirmed my earlier reconnaissance. Not much around here. No witnesses, but no real hiding spots either. If I stayed in this alley they’d find me for sure, but if I ran out into the street there would be people who could tell my pursuers where I had gone. Neither option was conducive to living much longer.

Anything below to work with? No, the road looked solid with no handy maintenance access. What about above? The roofs were somewhat low but I wouldn’t be able to pull myself up with these wounds. It was getting very difficult to think straight.

The door started to glow. They were coming through. I was just going to have to take my certain death chances with the road then. I turned to run, and caught sight of my tentacle, which made me think. (No, I hadn’t forgotten about it again. That would be ridiculous. But if I had it would have been due to my injuries)

What happened once they got through the door is a little fuzzy. I know eventually they headed out into the street because by then I was done passing out from pain resting. As I had realized at the last minute, my artificial arm didn’t care about pain or muscle failure, it just executed the commands it was given. That had allowed me to pull myself up on the roof in one quick, agonizing jerk, but the strain on the wounds in my back had been problematic. I’m lucky I was unconscious resting or my screams of agony could have given away my position.

As it was though things more or less worked out after that. You may recall that my artificial arm is quite heavy. I’ve seen a number of negative side effects from that. (My fucking knees are shot. Living the way I do was hell on them to begin with, and this has only made things worse.) Not only does the weight increase strain over all, it also messes with my equilibrium somewhat. I run a lot slower than I used to, and more crookedly too.

To compensate I’ve started wearing armor more often since weighing or slowing me down is less of a concern. Overall the decision has been something of a mixed bag but in this case it helped saved my life. I didn’t have access to really high quality armor and their blasters had punched through, but the damage had been somewhat mitigated and fortunately blaster wounds don’t bleed except in unusual circumstances.

I rested a few more times up on the roof, until I was certain my pursuers were nowhere nearby (no really, it was a totally rational decision in no way dictated by physical constraints,) then I dropped back down and began my slow, excruciating trek back to my ship. There’s really no way to make that part sound interesting, unless I gave you a litany of what hurt and the number of times I rested. I’ll spare you those details though. Suffice it to say I eventually made it back to my ship.

Once inside I rested a few more times, but eventually I made it to one of the active cradles. I’m sure you’ve been briefed, but just in case I’ll remind you my current condition requires fairly regular sustainment procedures, so the cradle was not only set for human but had built up a very useful database of how my body was supposed to operate. Once it determined how to return me to a functional state it was just a matter of time. My other business would have to wait for a bit.

CHAPTER 1

Shit, I did the thing where I get things out of order again, didn’t I? I apologize. Sometimes I forget that you’re sitting there perusing this report, not living out here in Sector 12 of the Kill Zone. I need to remember that my life, serving as a Ranger to protect human space, Frontier Corps and The Wall (while not reaping any of the benefits of that protection myself,) is very different from yours. I must keep in mind that even though life is chaotic and ugly out here for humans, trying to scrape out a living amongst the multitude of alien races and polities, that isn’t the way things are for humans everywhere. I’m very sorry. I’ll try to focus and keep things more coherent. Let me try starting over.

I’ve been following a lead on the assassin who blew up my ship a few months back. (You remember, the one I killed with the cleaning supplies.) Now as I reported at the time, the method I used to kill him completed obliterated any usable trace of both him and his ship, and of course given his attack method my ship didn’t have any data either. His attack also destroyed the sensors on the freighter I ejected to when my ship was disabled, so I don’t have any real valuable data.

However I was able to extrapolate somewhat from his initial attack (before it detonated I mean.) When I got hit I was taken completely unawares but the freighter’s sensors did get a partial look at the weapon used. (I presume the assassin planned to wipe that record after he had killed or captured me, he just didn’t live long enough to do so.) It took me a while to piece it together, but I was hit by a directional EMP missile. The stealth field it was wrapped in was high quality but the freighter caught a glimpse of the primary booster from behind as the missile passed by. That’s pretty difficult to shield completely (and also less important since by definition that end of the missile is pointed away from your target.)

Once I realized it had been a missile I could draw some conclusions regarding its capabilities. Not only must it have homed in on passives alone, it also fried all my ship’s systems without overkilling to the extent of turning me crispy. The latter indicates that the assassin either wanted me alive or wanted an identifiable corpse, but the two capabilities together are a strong indication that he (or someone working with him) had gotten solid sensor readings on my ship. (Otherwise the missile couldn’t have been configured so precisely.)

By piecing together the last time I had done modifications or maintenance that would have significantly changed my ship’s signature/shield capacity I was able to create a timeframe within which that scan must have been taken. After that it was a simple matter of back-tracking and investigating.

It took some digging and a number of heartfelt discussions with public-spirited individuals of good will, but eventually I found Mr. Mryx. He was an upstanding member of the arms-dealing entrepreneurial community who was always looking to expand his business. His desire to find new customers was so strong that he had managed to secure access to the sensor logs at the local spaceport. This allowed him to tailor solutions for his clients much more efficiently.

Naturally, since I was unsatisfied with the services he had rendered he was very eager to address my grievances. At least that’s how I interpret the fact that he didn’t make a single complaint when I woke him up one night to air my grievances. (He did apologize for the laxity of his servants and security in not ushering me into his presence, but I told him not to worry about it. I was certain they were just all extremely tired on that particular evening.)

Unfortunately, Mr. Mryx was unable to be very helpful. It seems the gentlemen he had assisted in my case had utilized tele-presence and paid through a cut-out. This perturbed me, a fact that Mr. Mryx readily perceived and which caused him much distress. Finally, in an attempt to make amends Mr. Mryx offered to introduce me to a different gentlemen instead, one associated with and in fact the perpetrator of an extraordinarily uncouth act. As I am always in favor of chastising the impure for the betterment of civilization I naturally took advantage of his kind offer, which is how I came to make the acquaintance of the recently deceased malefactor in the aforementioned establishment of ill-repute.

But then those assholes shot me, and since they had obviously been sitting there just waiting for me I knew Mr. Mryx had fucking sold me out. So the first order of business once the cradle had finished patching me up was quite clear. I was going to have to register an additional complaint.

Don’t know how big a deal desks are in Frontier Space. I saw a few while I was training, but I was somewhat occupied during that period so I didn’t have too much time or freedom to investigate. Out here in the Kill Zone they have a certain significance, or at least that’s been my observation.

I lived most of my childhood in space. Stations, ships, the occasional asteroid base. Given the life my parents lived none of those locations were of particularly high quality. Artificial grav is cheap but it does require regular maintenance. Also a certain amount of power, and of course a supply of replacement parts, various tools and materials. Not much, but sometimes work is scarce and fuel is running low. Sometimes something breaks and it will be a week or two before new parts can be acquired. These things just happen.

So it’s not that artificial grav wasn’t the norm. It was. It’s just that you couldn’t rely on having it in any given moment. That sort of environment isn’t really conducive to desks. Not real ones anyway. You store everything you need safely and securely in case the grav suddenly goes out at the worst possible moment (which in my experience is almost always the case.)

That includes chairs and work-surfaces, which like most furnishings fold up so they can be locked down when not in use. This is doubly useful since there isn’t all that much room and space is always at a premium. On a small ship you might have one cabin that isn’t full of controls or machinery or equipment or bunks etc. That cabin needs to be used for just about every miscellaneous activity, so you can’t afford to dedicate a large chunk of that space to a desk.

Not that I’m complaining, mind you. What I’m really getting at is that I have a very clear memory of the first time in my life I even saw a desk. We were on a planet, by itself something of a novelty for me. Mother prospected a fair bit but most of that was on asteroids or the odd moon. Planets tend to hide the good minerals a bit deeper, where you needed all kinds of fancy equipment to get at them. Anyway, due to the novelty I was very cognizant of my surroundings, but despite all the interesting new things to see and smell and hear and feel (it was so weird being outside and not wearing a vac-suit) the desk stood out.

Can’t remember exactly what we were doing, honestly. I was still pretty young, and very distracted. I think maybe Dad was off getting parts, which is why Mom needed to take me with her to get some kind of license. I can’t really be sure though. I may have extrapolated those details as necessary later.

Regardless, I do remember clearly sitting in the waiting room with Mom while she filled out form after form. I wasn’t incredibly happy to be inside when there was so much wonder out there, but I sat quietly and waited. Space is pretty dangerous, especially on a low budget. In that context parents quickly learn that there are obedient children and dead children, (and they discipline accordingly.) Not to say that my parents were harsh or cruel, but a very keen sense of cause/effect and consequences was pounded into gifted to me.

My resulting compliance was likely a factor in Mom’s decision to bring me with her when she left the waiting room and went into the office to speak to The Important Man. Knowing what I know now he probably was a low-level bureaucrat with only a modicum of power, but at the time I thought he must be one of the leaders of the city or something. There he sat, behind the symbol of his position: the desk.

It made an incredible impression on me, and it took me a long time to finally break down exactly why that was. The thing was massive, taking up nearly an eighth of the room all by itself. I had yet to realize how much space there truly was on a planet so that made it seem very important. Even more astonishingly the desk was made of some type of wood, a material I rarely encountered. I was too young to understand supply and demand, to realize that wood was infrequently in space because it was not very useful there. I had almost never seen wood so I thought it must be some incredibly special material.

Sitting off to the side as I was I could just make out the desk’s drawers, and their size piqued my curiosity. What was he securing inside? He wouldn’t need tools for his job and he clearly didn’t sleep here so it wouldn’t be clothes. It was much too big to house merely data. What was so important that he needed this much storage space? My life consisted mainly of necessities so it never even occurred to me that the drawers might be empty or used to store items of negligible value.

As you can see the encounter was meaningful enough to fuel reflections for many years. Eventually I de-mystified the desk, realizing it had never been as important as my youthful ignorance had led me to believe. But then something strange happened. As I lived my adult life and interacted more and more often with desk owners I realized I was not the only one with some strange ideas on the subject.

The whole concept of a desk is an archaic relic when you really think about it. They were invented to give a physical surface to write on and a place to store written materials. The whole process was digitized a very long time ago. My MDC can store more data and documents than could be stored physically in a thousand desks. All you need in modern times is a chair and something to rest your MDC on, maybe a little pocket to hold a few INTPADs.

And yet desks still exist. The bureaucrat, the guy from upper management, the local representative, the crime boss- they all seem favorably inclined towards the desk. Not just humans either but most of the races that use chairs (and even a few that don’t.) There’s something about a desk that they seem to find nigh-irresistible.

I’ve theorized about this a fair bit. (Waiting in ambush can get very, very boring.) Maybe people like having a desk because of the way it singles them out. Only one person in the room has a desk, subtly reminding everyone who the boss is.

Or maybe the attraction comes from the way the piece of furniture dictates body language. The person behind the desk is half-concealed. They can unobtrusively make themselves more comfortable. They have something to lean on and perhaps even knick-knacks to fiddle with. By comparison the guest is exposed, fully aware that any fidget or adjustment is visible.

Or perhaps desks give a sort of psychological security. They serve as a physical and/or metaphorical barrier between the desk’s owner and anyone who enters the room. The man behind cannot be approached directly.

Of course the problem is that none of that is very practical. For a lot of people that might not matter, but high quality desks can be expensive and therefore purchasing one could make a lot of leaders look petty, wasteful and vain. (Justice forbid that we make the truth too accessible.) In some case this may act as a deterrent to purchasing said commodities, but if there’s anything sapient beings excel at it’s finding ways around uncomfortable realities. People want desks to make them feel important, and desk-makers want to make money. A solution was found pretty quickly.

Most high-quality desks are sold as security devices. The manufacturers quickly realized that their customers like massive and ostentatious desks so they found a way to justify those traits. Security desks ‘need’ to be big in order to fit things like communication scramblers, weapon scanners, Data Core interlocks, etc.

The truly premium models come with built in shield generators sufficient to stop most small-arms fire. Those designed for customers with a background that is decidedly more criminal socially fluid tend to have scan-resistant hidden compartments and built in targetable incapacitators of various kinds. If you point out that the incapacitators are bracketed and easily replaced, and that the power lines that run to them are capable of providing a lot more power than mere non-lethal devices could ever need, the manufacturers will likely refer you to their lawyers. (You don’t want to find out what’s in their desks.)

So you see, desks really are kind of a big deal out here, and Mr. Mryx had a beauty. (And you thought I wasn’t going anywhere with this.) I doubt his associate Mr. Howitz was fully cognizant of the desk’s capabilities, but he knew enough to be somewhat on edge. That much was clear from his posture.

I got right to business. Mr. Howitz, I’ve asked you here in order to make you a proposition. I hope we can reach an agreement swiftly and amicably.

His eyes darted back and forth, unconsciously trying to see through the distortion screen the desk projected in order to hide the occupant from sight. Where’s Mr. Mryx? Who are you?

My Star was feeding me the sound of my own voice as it went through the distortion modulator. I have to admit my laugh came out disturbing and vaguely ominous (even if I do say so myself.) Mr. Mryx has retired. He made several errors in judgement in rapid succession recently, and for the good of the organization he is no longer in charge.

As for myself, I represent a group of, let us say, investors. Given Mr. Mryx’s resignation they have directed me to begin personnel changes immediately. I called you here to see if you were interested in applying for the vacated position.

Howitz stared across the desk. Mr. Mryx had loved his air of mystery and anonymity, which explained the distortion field that currently concealed me. This created a conundrum for Howitz though. He didn’t know very much about Mr. Mryx, so he couldn’t judge if what I was saying was true or not. Certainly Mr. Mryx had gotten the funding to initiate this enterprise from somewhere. On the other hand, for all he knew Mr. Mryx had simply altered his speech patterns and this was all a test.

I couldn’t read the emotive cues of his proboscis, but even so it was clear his mind was racing. He had very little data and this was a decision he had to get right. Eventually he reached a decision. My first priority at this time is to speak to Mr. Mryx if he is available. Despite recent events I have always looked up to him and I would greatly appreciate the opportunity to express that sentiment in person.

My response was another laugh. Excellent. That was a very well-thought out, cautious and non-threatening choice. You pass. What we’re looking for in terms of a replacement is someone who will be a bit more careful than Mr. Mryx was. I think the investors will be very pleased with you if you are able to be consistently this cautious. Hopefully he would draw the correct conclusions from the way I completely passed over his request.

As Mr. Mryx’s second-in-command I’m certain you will be able to step up immediately, and we intend to give you full rein to run this operation as you see fit, with one small exception. You may continue to market your wares to whomever you please, but the investors wish to add a second step to the transfer of specialized, targeted weapons. In these cases it would be prudent for you to ascertain the general target and intended use of the weapons in question. If you check your MDC you will see that I’ve sent you a list of the types of weapons in this category. I’ve also sent you a list of targets that the investors feel are, shall we say, possible destabilizers in the sense of being bad for the overall business environment.

It took him only a few minutes to read the files off of his MDC. I believe I understand. It should not be too difficult to maintain profitability while avoiding selling weapons to be utilized against these targets, although there will likely be some variation in revenue during the adjustment period.

Excellent. I replied. I really meant that too. The only reason I had stayed after inducing Mr. Mryx to retire was to try to salvage something from this whole mess. If I could keep weapon systems from flowing to certain parties that would make this all slightly less of a waste of time.

If you truly do understand then that proves you are the right man for the job. As long as that is the case I will leave you to your work. I’ll take care of a few more administrative tasks here and then be out of your way. Have a wonderful day!

He stood and turned to go, pausing as I interrupted him. Oh, one more thing. I nearly forgot. I realize you may have something urgent to do immediately after this but there is something I’d like you to look into. While resigning Mr. Mryx mentioned that some maintenance is being done on this warehouse’s security system. Apparently it is a little glitchy at the moment, and keeps flickering on and off. Complicating matters, someone seems to have miswired something, so instead of connecting to the alarms the system is interfacing with the detonators of certain munitions stored here. If you could round up all your personnel and investigate this problem it would be an admirable first act as their new leader.

The diffidence in my voice came out of the distortion modulator so smug sounding it was making even me sick. Maybe it was my imagination, but Howitz was looking a bit queasy as well. Hard to blame him really. If my boss had made such a bone-headed error with security I’d feel bad too.

Having taken care of the arms dealers the obvious thing to do was to get off planet before I was found again by…whoever the fuck those people were who attacked me. Before his passing…into retirement Mr. Mryx had explained that he didn’t actually know who the attackers were, just that he had heard they were looking for a Ranger. He’d hoped they could solve his problem for him if he just passed along my description and future location.

The salient question of course was were they looking for any old Ranger, or for me in particular? It pains my heart to admit this, but there are a few groups out here that have grudges against the Rangers in general. Not many, since we’re all such wonderful people. A tiny minority of the groups out here share that sentiment, really. It can’t be more than half of the organizations with real power and force projection capabilities.

By comparison the number of groups that dislike me might be slightly higher. 90%, maybe 95% of all relevant organizations. Max. However, and I cannot stress this enough, that’s only counting groups that actually know something about me. My favorability/unfavorability numbers are much better among groups that don’t know who I am, and still relatively good when you look at groups that have never encountered me. Since the sector is a big place, those latter two groups constitute the majority, so overall I’d have to say most people don’t want to kill me personally have a reasonably favorable view of me.

In the end I suppose it didn’t really matter why these people wanted to kill me, except insofar as that knowledge would let me predict their actions and tactics. If they didn’t have good intel it should be relatively easy to evade them. Mr. Mryx hadn’t had much information to give them, and he knew nothing about my current ship.

So hypothetically it should be safe to just take off. I had acquired this ship very recently and in a distant part of the sector so it was unlikely anyone here would know I was flying it. Still, that didn’t mean I was completely safe. Depending on how hard they were willing to work they might still have some options. Obviously they weren’t watching the spaceport or they would have caught me when I returned to my ship the first time. That didn’t mean they weren’t monitoring out-going ships though.

It didn’t mean they were either, but the possibility was worth investigating. It took some time and effort but I managed to find a vulnerability in Traffic Control and get access to the sensor logs. Hmm. All the ships sitting in orbit with active sensors were authorized security vessels of one sort or another. I couldn’t detect who was watching their passives of course, but I could examine orbits and make some guesses about armament and readiness status with what I had. Didn’t look like anyone was in especially good shape to intercept a vessel quickly.

Still, it wasn’t impossible. I decided to check the IFF signatures versus the hull maps, make sure there weren’t any suspicious irregularities. It entailed a lot of work, but I opted to do it anyway. Paranoid? Proudly. I am a firm believer that my continued survival is a vindication of said attitude.

In this particular case it paid off much faster than I anticipated. Someone had gotten the same idea as me, and they had left a monitoring program in place. Shit.

Stars give a huge advantage in terms of jeccing capabilities. I don’t know how the miniaturization was so successful but in terms of sheer power and capability it’s difficult to beat a Star with a portable rig, especially one built with commonly available tech. On top of that the value of access bypass is almost incalculable since a lot of security measures are focused on preventing unauthorized access. Once you’re in things get a lot easier.

That means that my Star allows me to routinely (if not always quickly) breach systems that are otherwise generally well protected. Most security is a deterrent. The only way to make a system completely secure is to make it inaccessible, literally. That may sound like a truism or redundancy since the point of a security breach is to acquire unauthorized access, but the key term there is unauthorized. In order to be useful a system needs to be accessible, but in order to be secure it needs to be inaccessible.

This creates a sliding scale. The more locked-down the system the less useful it is, generally speaking. So when experts speak of a secure system they are speaking not in absolute but in relative terms. A system is safe when the effort required to breach it is more costly than the benefits of unauthorized access, or at least when you begin to see real deterrent effects. Skilled intruders can breach most systems, but they tailor their targeting according to individual risk/benefit calculations.

Those seeking financial gain tend to go after low security systems en masse to find profit in volume, or search for inadequately secured systems that will yield large payouts in return for minimal work. Those seeking notoriety or with ideological motives spend their time trying to break into high value systems housing critical or embarrassing data. As a result most systems in the middle can stay safe with moderate amounts of security. They just need to be difficult enough to break into that other targets are more attractive.

My Star changes that equation by making accessing many of these systems dramatically easier, even routine (if often still arduous.) Naturally I can hit the low security targets as well, and sometimes a high value target is within my reach, but the mid-level security systems is where I do most of my best work. It’s reasonably safe since my Star out-classes anything they might have and the information and capabilities available at that tier are usually sufficient for my needs.

Once someone else jecs that same system though, things can get dicey. The fact that they got in means they have at least some skill but it’s difficult to estimate how they measure up to me and my Star. Most run-of-the mill criminals are not in my league. I have a fair bit of experience and my training was very solid. Besides, their equipment is almost always inferior. (The trick is identifying the outliers. Fortunately they tend to be thrill-seekers and the like, which minimizes the potential for conflict with my agenda.)

A lot of intelligence agencies are about on my level. Their abilities tend to vary greatly and their training is usually subpar but most agencies have at least a few experts, veterans or savants. Their gear also tends to have more brute power than my Star (at least in the case of their non-portable versions) albeit they lack the fluidity and flexibility the Star possesses.

The problem is that not every government (or for that matter private or criminal organization) has their head totally up their ass. There’s a lot of wars, feuds and arms races out here, all of which tend to deter even bureaucracies from slipping into their usual state of near-total incompetence. I’m not the most talented at this shit, not by a long shot, and although the Star is amazing tech that’s not to say it’s unmatched. Besides which stationary rigs can jec just as well as portable ones as long as they gain access, and they have room for a lot more in terms of capability multipliers.

The problem is that the Star has to pull information out of any system I’m in, which means there’s a route back to me. A miniscule, hidden route fraught with peril and heavily guarded, but a route nonetheless. With sufficient skill and equipment support it is hypothetically possible to breach even a Star, which is why they are all designed to self-destruct immediately if such an intrusion is detected.

While being able to say I’m the only living Ranger whose Star has self-destructed does give me a certain amount of cachet it’s not an experience I’m eager to repeat. (Relax, I haven’t actually told anyone, I just wanted an excuse to properly use the word cachet. You would too if you heard all these assholes mispronouncing ‘cache.’ Fucking uncultured, brain-dead, puffed-up swine the lot of them.) For that reason the presence of the monitoring program gave me pause. By which I mean that I immediately broke into a cold sweat.

Was the malware’s presence a coincidence, or were my enemies using this to watch for me? Inside the system I circled the program cautiously. There were several obvious access points, and none of them showed any signs of security that could stop me from getting in.

Vulnerabilities, signs of an inferior operative, or a trap? The size of the program made me nervous. Skirting the perimeter I could see how much storage space it was occupying, and it was more than I would have used for a monitoring subroutine. Maybe that meant the author was less skilled than I and needed the extra space to accomplish the task, or maybe it meant something more ominous.

I wasn’t about to take a chance. Yes breaching that program was probably the quickest way to tell if they were looking for me, but there were others. Slower and more arduous, but perhaps safer.

Quietly I withdrew from Traffic Control and started prowling around the intersection between the spaceport and the planetary net. I had to hunt for a while but eventually I found what I was looking for: two ships connected to the net with poor security and modified beacons. Criminals, almost certainly. Perfect.

IFF Beacons are somewhat peculiar out here in the Kill Zone. In terms of origins most species and political units are confronted with the same problem, to whit: everyone needs a way to Identify Friends and Foes. Knowing who is a friendly is very important (so you don’t blow them up,) but at the same time you can’t rely on something superficial or enemies can easily deceive you. Some type of encrypted beacon or secret sign is needed to make certain a ship is what (and who) it says it is.

Different groups have found a lot of different solutions to that problem, but all answers share certain points of commonality. Any solution has to be secure and difficult to replicate by a third party. It has to function over long distances in order to prevent opportunities for ambushes. It needs to give sufficient proof of identity to prevent ready deception but not give away too much information to enemies. Etc., etc.

That may sound like a problem with only a few possible solutions, but that underestimates the true diversity you find out here. The Sheaele play complex light patterns across their hull that ‘sing’ a song of the ship’s history. (The song grows as the ship accrues more experiences, following highly complex cultural rules.) The Crikt use an intricate system of signs and countersigns. The Heshiatri give each of their ships a unique grav signature. All Squid ships have hulls with tiny discrepancies that make them unique in terms of precise shape, and somehow they can measure that at great distances. Many groups use encrypted beacons but supplement with records of drive signatures, hull profiles, crew records or some other method of verification.

To a certain degree that works internally, especially in times of war. The problem is commerce. Ships using all these different identification methods want to trade with each other, but the groups can’t reveal their encryptions or other verification methods without endangering themselves during potential conflict. No entity is powerful enough to force a standardized compromise, so fixes to this problem tend to be somewhat localized and ad hoc.

The most common is issuing simple sealed beacons to registered ships. The beacon is ‘tamper-proof’ and transmits identifying information: vessel name, place of registry, registration number and basic sensor profile (in some cases very basic indeed.) Customs (or other security) checks that information against their database, and it’s as simple as that.

Heh. Just kidding. Greed always finds a way. ‘Tamper proof’ turns out to be more of an expression of hope than a description. I won’t go into the details, but with a few specialized tools you can get inside without destroying the seals that Customs usually look for. A couple minutes’ work with a very precise thermo-cutter inside and the beacon becomes quite receptive to programming changes. At that point all you need to do is find a ship with a similar profile that is clean but not local, then copy their identifying information. This is a pretty popular technique with criminals as you can imagine.

The problem opportunity with this lies in the fact that once you’ve removed the internal locks there’s not much protecting the beacon’s programing. If someone can penetrate the ship’s internal net then they can probably find a way into the beacon as well. That’s not much of an issue since most of the time there’s really no reason for anyone to mess with your beacon. Most of the time.

I watched through Traffic Control, keeping a close eye on the two ships and the surrounding vessels. My program should activate any minute now. There it was. The IFF of the first flickered for a moment, a momentary cessation of transmission. It wasn’t much, but the beacons tended to be pretty reliable if not tampered with so even a flicker was suspicious.

Hmm. No response. I waited a couple hours, both to alleviate any possible suspicion and to make certain no one slowly drifted to intercept the first vessel. Once things seemed clear I triggered the program in the second beacon.

It was still subtle, the merest hesitation of transmission, likely due to a tiny software bug. Lots of criminals screw up on the transmission loop, leaving a tiny gap when the false signal finishes. Just a second or so before the transmission starts over from the beginning. They rarely pay for that mistake. Sure for just a fraction of that second the base IFF data is readable if it hadn’t been adequately wiped (which takes a lot of work in itself) but someone would have to be paying awfully close attention to pick up on that.

In this case someone was. Fifteen minutes after the IFF began stuttering three ships abruptly came about and charged toward the vessel in question. Now that was interesting.

Nearly everything about those ships was disparate. IFFs registered to different entities, different models, different purposes