Poison Breadcrumbs

DATE: Year 308-B, Sol 505

LOCATION: Aboard MTC Transport Company Man (Approaching the Asteroid Belt)

STATUS: Liquidation

The transport had been burning for twenty-four days.

The interior was plush. It had leather seats, real gravity plating, a fully stocked bar. It was a luxury suite moving at ten thousand kilometers per second.

Doremus found a way to be upset.

Clinton sat on one side of the lounge, staring at his hands. He wore the grey prison jumpsuit Warden May had issued him, stripped of his EZM rank and his flak jacket. He tried to look at it as a vacation.

Across the room, Commander Doremus was pacing. He still wore his MTC officer’s uniform, though the insignias had been ripped off.

They hadn't spoken in three weeks.

The door to the cockpit opened. A man in a sharp grey suit stepped out.

-Gentlemen, the suit said. Prepare for arrival. We are docking at the Deimos Annex Facility in thirty minutes.

Doremus stopped pacing.

-Deimos Annex? That’s a slag heap. It’s been closed for fifty years.

-It is a secure facility, the suit said flatly. Your contracts have been terminated. You are being processed for retirement.

-Retirement, Doremus repeated. Is that what we’re calling execution now?

-The Venus incident was an embarrassment to everybody.

The suit looked at Clinton.

-The EZM has transferred the remainder of your commission contract to us, Captain Clinton.

Clinton flinched.

-I served the movement for twenty years, Clinton whispered.

-And now you serve it by disappearing, the suit said.

He reached into his jacket.

Doremus moved first.

The suit stumbled back, blinded.

-Clinton! Doremus roared. Move!

The two troopers by the door raised their rifles.

Clinton moved fast.

He dove for the first trooper, tackling him at the waist. They hit the floor in a tangle of limbs. The rifle went off, blowing a hole in the ceiling tiles.

Doremus was a blur of violence. He vaulted the lounge table and drove his shoulder into the second trooper.

He jammed his thumb into the trooper’s eye socket, twisted the rifle away, and fired a single shot into the man’s throat.

Clinton was losing his fight. The trooper was younger, stronger. He had his hands around Clinton’s neck, squeezing.

Clinton gagged. He saw the trooper’s face, twisted in effort.

This was it, he thought, resigning himself.

No.

He grabbed a shard of the broken decanter from the floor and drove it into the trooper’s armpit, finding the gap in the armor.

The trooper screamed and let go.

Clinton scrambled back, gasping.

Doremus stepped up and put a boot on the trooper’s chest. He leveled the captured rifle and fired.

Clinton lay on the floor, heaving. Doremus stood over him, wiping blood from his lip.

He offered a hand. Clinton hesitated, then took it.

-The pilot, Doremus said, pointing to the door to the hallway.

They stormed the cockpit together. The pilot, who’d just been assigned and thought he’d get to be exploring the solar system, didn’t put up a fight. He threw his hands up as Doremus pressed the hot barrel of the rifle to his temple.

-Get out, Doremus ordered.

The pilot scrambled out of the chair and ran to the back.

Doremus sat in the pilot’s seat. Clinton took the co-pilot’s chair.

-Where are we going? Clinton asked. The Tumble? We could disappear there.

-The Tumble is a slum, Doremus said. I’m not going to hide in a trash can.

He pulled up the long-range sensor logs. He filtered for high-velocity ion trails leaving the inner system.

-There, Doremus pointed. Solar Oberth signature. It’s faint, but it’s there. Leaving Mercury. Heading deep.

-Phoenix, Clinton whispered. He’s going to Jupiter.

-He made fools of us, Clinton. He cost me my bounty. He cost you your faith.

Doremus punched in the coordinates. Then he swiveled the chair to face Clinton.

-I need a co-pilot. I need my bounty.

Clinton looked out the viewport. He had been so close to giving up because he’d been given up on. Bounty, why not?

-Okay, Clinton said.

Doremus smiled.

-Strap in, Captain. We’re going hunting.