5


Prisons have gangs. Abandoned space stations populated by convicted murderers have the worst gangs imaginable. And crazies. I hadn’t gone a kilometer before spotting dozens of watchers. Shadowy faces peered out from windows and alleyways and ventilation shafts.
Moving quickly, I stopped at the corners of buildings and checked my back trail to be sure I wasn't being followed. The place was quiet and dark. The star field was intense, with no competition from artificial lighting. The moon and the nearby planet were somewhere on the other side of Dreadmax now, throwing a weird glow up from the horizon of the main ring.
"Can't go this way. You'll die,” said the slightly distorted voice of a child through a public address speaker.
I looked around, blood running cold as I struggled to remember how long this place had been a prison. Twenty years?
"X, how long has this place been open for business?"
"I'm not sure ‘open for business’ is the phrase you're looking for. Would you like me to consult my database of human languages?"
"We've been through this before, X. Just answer the question."
"Twenty years, three months, five days, seventeen hours, and three minutes."
"I'm assuming it's a coed facility."
"Why wouldn't it be? Are you concerned about the children watching us on the surveillance cameras?”
I reminded myself that X-37 didn't have extrasensory abilities. He was making inferences from my behavior and my sensory data.
"I bet none of them were convicted of capital crimes."
"There is a zero percent chance anyone born on Dreadmax has had due process," remarked X.
I moved to the next position, wondering why the child spies seemed so interested in my welfare.
"Didn't you hear me, mister?" asked the child.
“Why are you following me?” I asked.
"You're funny. We’re not following you. We’re watching you."
This confirmed a couple of things. One, there was some sort of active surveillance system in place. Two, it was controlled by children, which meant adults couldn’t get into the control room or didn't care about video surveillance.
“Please sweep your eyes across the landscape,” X-37 ordered.
“Sure thing, X. Anything for you.”
“Sarcasm detected. There are three cameras aimed at your current location. By outward appearances, they are inoperative. No LED power indicators seen. However, analysis of the situation suggests they are, in fact, fully functional. The public address system is operating adequately,” X-37 announced.
“Figured that one out all by myself.” Steam burst out a vent, explaining some of the rust I saw during the flyover and warning me of the lack of maintenance on this place. That type of inefficiency shouldn’t exist on a trillion-ton battle ring—even if it was decommissioned.
Moving, listening, and searching along narrow walkways at the bottom of metal trenches, I picked up other noises that were more dangerous—like gunshots in the distance.
“Someone thinks they can take down the dropship with small arms fire,” I said, not expecting a comment from X-37.
“That would be a false assumption,” replied the child’s voice instead.
“Hey, kid. Come out where I can see you.”
Several voices laughed through the PA. It sounded weird because the air pressure inside the environment shield was wonky as hell.
“We’re not stupid. It’s safe in the tower. Crazies can’t get in. The RSG don’t care about us and the Nightfall Gangsters don’t come this far.”
“What’s an RSG?” I crept under a surprisingly sophisticated cluster of cameras, PA speakers, and listening devices.
“Red Skull Gangsters, dummy,” came the indignant response.
“I should have seen that coming,” I muttered.
“Hey, mister. We’re serious. You can’t fucking go this way. Slab is having a big party.”
“Slab?”
“He puts people on a slab. Cuts them up and eats their fingers.”
“Your mother tell you that?”
Several children laughed nearby. They weren’t just watching via camera feed, they had creepers.
I moved into an extremely narrow passage probably not meant for humans. There were rails along the floor and walls where I imagined maintenance bots could travel. It took a lot of twisting and squatting low to get through, but I came out in a new trench and heard what the watchers were talking about.
A quick scan of the area fed X-37 details I couldn’t pick up from such a quick peek.
“There’s an armed guard at each corner and a rover,” X-37 said.
“Got an eye on him.” I looked around for a camera but couldn’t find one. “Seems like all the cameras in this area are disabled.”
“Perhaps you should heed the advice of the child in the tower,” X-37 cautioned.
“Let’s call them kids or watchers. Just humor me on this,” I said.
“I always do.”
I wish my Reaper AI could highjack the Dreadmax security systems, but if wishes were fishes, then beggars would eat. And I’d be on my own ship heading out of the system.
“Update me only when needed. I want to go silent for a while and concentrate,” I whispered before I crossed the street and ran in a low crouch through shadows cast by a massive three-story building ahead of me. It looked like a repair facility for large ships, a dry dock that could handle up to a destroyer class. The building had a main hangar and several smaller hangars. The building attached to it rose up three stories but probably went below decks as well.
It was probably as large as the entire BMSP facility.
I passed near the sentries on the way and noted their weapons. I wasn’t sure how prison gangs could be carrying better weapons than I was, but I thought I’d ask Grady in a strongly worded complaint as soon as I saw him again.
“Contact imminent,” X-37 said.
A wheeled vehicle with a chassis magnet holding it down in case of gravity loss sped around the corner, something obviously wrong with the motor.
“Okay, maybe now isn’t a good time to put you to sleep. What the hell is wrong with that thing?”
“It seems the locals have removed the electric motor in favor of an internal combustion engine.”
I sprinted away from the party. “Whatever. It’s loud as fuck and it stinks.”
“I’ll take your word for it.”
“Trust me, X, I wouldn’t lie to you.”
The car screeched to a stop near the entrance of my hiding place. One shouted while another shone a flashlight in my direction. I pressed my back to the wall and held my breath until they moved on.
Loud music boomed from Slab’s building. The sound of a crowd cheering and stomping feet was unmistakable.
“Doesn’t sound like a prison,” I remarked.
“There are no guards who don’t work for the gangs. The residents of Dreadmax probably understand it is a matter of time before all systems fail,” X-37 replied.
“What about the kids? Is there a normal part of this place where people have settled down and learned how to survive with a modicum of civility?” I wondered.
“Doubtful,” X-37 said.
“Hey, kid? Are you listening?” I felt like a dork for calling out, but I needed to know. They were a good resource if they controlled the surveillance system and were willing to answer some questions. Maybe they’d even provide real time intelligence.
I checked my gear, hunkered down, and pulled the mission tablet from a slim backpack attached to my recon gear. The Reaper AI could give me information, but I wanted to look at the map.
“This sucks, X. We need to be on the other side of Slab’s building or inside it.”
“That is only an estimate of where the doctor will be, based on his last known location and observation of the locals,” X-37 said.
“You mean gangs and crazies. Let’s not sugar coat this goat fornication.” I packed up and moved out. Staying in one place more than a minute or two felt dangerous.
The station was turning toward the planet, which was between us and the sun for a while longer.
“Darkness is good,” X-37 reminded me.
“Sure.” What bothered me were sounds. Screaming, shouting, and random gunfire or improvised explosive devices.
“Who the fuck would they be torturing on this place?”
“Anyone they want,” came the matter-of-fact reply.
“Thanks for that, X.”
* * *
“Overwatch One to Cain. Respond.” Grady sounded annoyed.
“I heard you the first time. The RSGs have more than one heavily armed patrol in this area,” I whispered, then dashed into a building.
“What’s an RSG?”
“Hold on. I need to clear some rooms.”
Not wanting to get shot in the doorway, I moved quickly through then slowed down just enough to provide a stable shooting platform while walking heel to toe. The standard HKD 4 short rifle came with red dot sights, infrared targeting options if I had the right helmet to go with it, and fifty round magazines. The bullets were small, but fast and accurate.
All things equal, I wished I had a shotgun for rooms this size. The HKD was decent for a lot of jobs and master of none. Not the worst choice in the armory.
I kept it at low ready, down six inches from my plane of vision so I didn’t miss seeing someone crouched. There were three rooms in this structure, each with doorways rather than closable doors. I sidestepped without slowing, viewing a larger and larger section of the room I was about to clear, then went through.
By the numbers. No mistakes. No rushing to failure.
“Clear, no Red Skull Gangsters in this crib.”
Grady grunted acknowledgment. “Glad to hear it. That’s what RSG means? Where’d you learn that?”
“Some kids from the neighborhood told me.”
“Bullshit.”
“Do me a favor, Grady, and pull some strings. This place needs evacuated no matter what happens with my mission. Make some calls. Get something going on that.”
“That’s not my job and it sure as hell isn’t yours,” he said, but I could tell he was talking to his team and pointing at screens in his command center. He’d probably at least send up a request.
“There’s some sort of shindig going on in maintenance hangar 1847 Zulu. Lot of noise. Music. Gunfire. Everything you might expect in a maximum-security prison.”
My old friend keyed up without talking. Sounds of a busy command center came through my earpiece.
“I could use visual confirmation there are children on Dreadmax. All of the inmates should have been sterilized before being sent there,” Grady said.
“Well, that didn’t fucking happen. Or someone put these kids here. I’ll make sure to ask first chance I get.”
“Send me a picture. Just one. I can’t justify compromising the mission for your personal photo album,” Grady said as he typed on his forearm keypad.
I knew the sound. I’d seen him do it often before I left spec ops.
“I haven’t put eyes on them yet.”
“What?”
“Audio comms only with the kids.”
“Godsdamnit, Hal. You had me all worked up.”
One tap of my helmet lowered the volume until I could barely hear him, especially as I moved closer to the maintenance hangar and the hellish party this Slab person was throwing.
“The clock is ticking, Cain. Find the principal.”
“That might not be possible. If he ran into the RSG, he’s probably in that building with about a thousand murderous thugs guarding him.”
“Can’t be that many.”
“Sounds like everyone the Union’s convicted in the last year,” I said, slipping dangerously close to one of the spotlight vehicles. Motherfuckers were loaded for bear. Galdiz 49 heavy rifles, one YT sniper model, body armor. Fucking spotlights. Fucking motorcars with battery packs for magnetic road locks.
“We’re doing a high-altitude flyover to confirm or deny your reports,” Grady said.
“You should have done that before you pushed me through the hatch.”
“No one pushed you,” he reminded me.
A new vehicle, an armored car with a crew-served machine gun, rolled around the corner with its headlights off. I had a gut feeling these guys had received training before earning their life sentences.
Methodically, the crew of the new vehicle used their spotlight to sweep the trenches and walkways. The light stopped on my position, even though I doubted they could see where I was hiding.
The heavy machine gun opened fire, cutting holes in the walls around me. I dropped to my stomach and crawled for a bot tunnel.
“X, can you help me out here?”
“Certainly. The tunnel you are entering is a dead end. There will be a filter welded in place.”
“Thanks. For. That.”
None of the bullets reached me and the gun crew apparently didn’t want to leave their vehicle, lucky for me. Twenty minutes later, I backed out of the worthless tube and dropped into a pile of debris created by the sustained machine gun fire.
“Cain for Overwatch,” I said quietly.
“Go for Overwatch,” Grady said.
“What kind of gang members have light armored vehicles with crew-served machine guns?”
He answered somberly, “Don’t worry about that now. We confirmed there is something going on in the hangar building. They’ve pulled in all of their patrols and barricaded the doors. Smaller groups of people are locking themselves in wherever there are doors or gates.”
“Why would they do that?”
“Because there is a swarm of foot traffic flooding into the area. They’re… running,” he answered, hesitantly.
“Running?”
“Yeah, but the way they do it, they look like animals.”
Crazies. Perfect.
“Shelter in place,” Grady shouted. “I’m not shitting you. Our scans show the assholes are fucking freaks. Probably cannibals.”
“Good thing I’m perfectly safe under this power conduit. Who would look here?”
“Find someplace better. They’ll see you.”
“Too late.” I strapped down my HKD and pulled my pistol. There wasn’t room for much else.
The ground shook as the horde charged around the corner. Thousands of men and women in rags leaped over trenches, walkways, and small structures like the power conduit. It hummed with energy. Thin, poorly fitted metal covered the wiring within. Rust colored the edges.
Dreadmax had a lot of rust—not something normally seen on a space-capable vessel.
“X-37, when did I have my last tetanus shot?”
“Three standard months ago. The warden ordered it. You told him to screw off, but his medical staff gave it to you anyway.”
“Right. How could I forget?”
One of the crazies jumped onto the power box, slamming down both feet with unnecessary force.
“Run the pack. Run the pack. It’s dinner time!” The man jumped away, racing to join another group of unwashed, insane humanity.
“This too shall pass,” X-37 whispered as five more, then ten, then a hundred screaming lunatics ran over my position.
“Hilarious. You missed your calling. You’ve got jokes,” I murmured.
“Overwatch to Cain, are you still there?”
“Yep. No thanks to you.”
“We’re moving out of radio contact. Will be back around in nine minutes. The swarm is coming back the way they came…”
Static ended his broadcast.
Looking at the first of the crazies to come back this direction, I suddenly felt very exposed. My hiding place had been perfect when they were traveling in one direction, but now I was basically squatting against a wall where they would see me easily.
I scooted back, stood up, and ran for the first service trench leading away from the maintenance hangar. The people inside had fires going and surprisingly decent music. It looked cozy.
“Grady won’t like this route. It’s an even greater deviation from the original plan,” X-37 pointed out.
“The original plan was shit.”
* * *
“For the record, I’ve seen enough of the crazies. Let’s find the doctor and get the hell off this hunk of junk,” I muttered after two hours of escape and evasion brought me back into visual range of the maintenance hangar building.
“What about the children in the surveillance tower?” questioned X-37.
“Well, X, they haven’t exactly been helpful. But I’ll see what I can do.”
This time, I was on the correct side to begin searching for my target.
Not that it mattered.
The RSG were out in force harassing another class of inmates, those not affiliated with a gang and not yet turned into screaming cannibal freaks.
“You'll need to secure a complete evacuation of the facility to be sure there are no innocents left behind when the gravity generator fails," X-37 said.
"You think that's what’s going to crash?"
"It will go down shortly after the power fails, and before you ask, atmosphere will be lost almost instantaneously. If you're still here, I recommend being inside the superstructure. Two or three levels down to be safe. People there will be able to survive indefinitely.”
"Might be better to get shot into the void. We haven't seen any evidence of the doctor and I don't have a way to develop an informant. I have to go into the RSG building," I said as I stashed my HKD and survival gear underneath an abandoned vehicle.
My pistol and my knife stayed on my hip for now. Later, I’d have to hide them where they were easy to reach.
"Of course," said X-37.
"What would I do without you, X?" I asked, not expecting a response.
Light finally spilled onto the surface of Dreadmax, reflected from the nearby planet. It looked habitable, but I knew it wasn't. Made for a nice view to contrast with the deteriorating surface of the space station though.
"Why aren't these people living within the ring?" I wondered.
"It's full of crazies,” answered X-37. “It was overrun soon after security forces pulled out and started dropping inmates with single-use life pods."
"And you're just now telling me this? How many crazies can there be down there?"
"Level V is the hydroponics facility. Even at full population, there's more than enough food to sustain ten thousand human adults indefinitely. Unless they ruined it. In the future, I'd advise you to ask better questions."
It wasn't the first time X-37 had given me this advice.
Two-story row houses that looked like ammunition boxes lined several of the protected trenches leading toward the maintenance hangar. Metal walkways crisscrossed the space above the alley-like streets, some falling down or otherwise promising to be structurally unsound. Men and women, and more than a few children, stepped out on their ground-level porches and waited for RSG tax collectors.
Grabbing a poncho from a man who looked too scared to resist, I blended with a group of people being taken inside the RSG stronghold.
"Haven't seen you before, friend," a man said.
"Just passing through."
He laughed and looked around at the thugs who had encouraged the work party. "At least they're not sending us on a scavenging party. I hate going down to the greenhouse. My brother-in-law likes it, but he's better at pilfering shit than I am. Always comes back with some extra food. First time I tried that, I’d get my hands cut off."
I studied him without being obvious. He'd clearly been on a starvation diet for a long time and may or may not have enjoyed the benefits of running water and plumbing. "What are you in for?"
He looks at me strangely. "Beg your pardon?"
"Dreadmax is a maximum-security prison," I said, intending to elaborate but losing the words. I was wondering if he was young enough to have been born here, but I was pretty sure he was in his thirties. Hard living had made him look older than he was.
"I colonized the wrong planet. Next thing you know, I'm doing maintenance for gangsters and hiding my daughters under the cistern. What about you? Are you a hardened killer?"
I didn’t bother with an answer. As soon as I could, I moved away from these people and slipped into a series of hallways inside the main building. The rest of them were being put to work in the hangar repairing machines on some kind of assembly line. Some of the parts belonged to wheeled vehicles and others seemed to have been salvaged from the shipyard some distance around the ring.
There was a grim sort of economy with the place. Offices and smaller workshops overlooked the ground floor from the second and third levels. I spotted heavily muscled freaks with tattoos and piercings leaning over to watch their workforce. They seemed to be hungover and pissed off at life.
Every door to the place had at least two guards that appeared sober and well-armed. They had military weapons, but also some very nasty black-market variations that violated most galactic treaties.
The tortured screams from the night before made a lot more sense now.
I slipped into a hallway that ran the perimeter of the massive building, then ducked into a stairwell when I spotted two hard-asses approaching at a fast walk. They were talking to each other, swearing and laughing. They might have been convicts, but I wouldn't have doubted if they'd had some military training. Or maybe they were cops, former guards who went bad or got left here.
"Overwatch for Cain, how copy?"
"I copy fine, but now isn’t a good time. I'm looking for the doctor."
"It's about time. What can we do to help?"
"How’s that evacuation plan coming? The longer I'm down here, the more innocent civilians I'm encountering. They have a class system to get things done, like food collection and basic maintenance."
"Don't worry about the evacuation. I've sent a request up the chain and used all the hot-topic words politicians need to hear to authorize anything," Grady said. "I'd be skeptical if I hadn't seen some of these people in the daylight. No kids yet, but I'm willing to believe you."
"You're an asshole. Why don’t you come down here and see for yourself?"
"You're always talking about how this would be going if you had planned the mission. Well, my proposal had been to go in with spec ops and clear this whole area until we found the principal and pulled him out. So don't lecture me."
I ducked into a supply closet as an old man carried buckets of water toward what smelled like some type of alcohol distillery at the end of this passage. He never looked up from his feet.
I opened the door a crack. "Like I said, Grady, this isn't a great place for me to talk. I'm deep in hostile territory without weapons or a quick reaction force to pull me out of the fire when it gets hot."
"What happened to your weapons?” he asked.
"Don't worry about my guns. They have better stuff to kill people with. Ever been shot with an acid thrower?"
"No, Hal. That's illegal. What's next, weapons of mass destruction? Nerve gas? Execution camps?" Grady asked.
"That's nice coming from someone who knows how many people are going to die when the power plant takes a shit."
There was a long pause before I heard Commander Briggs break in on a remote line. "That's enough of that talk, Cain. Do your job. Let me worry about collateral damage."
"I met a guy who said he colonized the wrong planet and got relocated to Dreadmax. I thought this place was for murderers and traitors, not rogue colonists.”
No one answered.
"That went well," X-37 said.
"Whatever." I picked up the pace, heading toward the sound of loud music and drunken laughter.
"What exactly are you doing?" X-37 asked.
"If the doctor is valuable to the Union, he might be valuable to whoever's running this place. Slab or whatever his name is. Remind me to tell them he's got a stupid name if we run into him."
"I can't see how taunting the man will help you complete the mission," replied X-37.
I arrived at a balcony on the third level overlooking another large hangar. There was a walkway circumventing this level with several private suites that were probably not for inmates in the beginning. It was the cleanest, most heavily guarded section of the building so far.
High above, there were dim LED lights, but many were out. The result was a harsh gloom that reminded me what type of facility this was.
Gathering up cleaning supplies, I turned myself into a janitor and pressed on. What was the worst that could happen?
A pair of guards stopped me, one with his left palm held forward and right hand holding the rifle he had on a sling. His partner didn’t say anything, only watched me.
They were solid, true professionals.
"Jonesy already cleaned this level. Who the hell are you?" asked one.
“I’m the lucky bastard that gets to clean up the doctor. Can you guys stop making him shit himself?" I replied.
“Yeah, that,” the lead guard said.
“Lucky guess,” X-37 whispered in my ear.
I’d assumed the screams were from the VIP’s torture session. I knew from experience what happened when your body couldn’t take any more abuse.