Chapter Text
"We've got incoming!" Hayden's voice splashed through Shane's speakers. "It's the Buzzards. They're flanking us."
"They're late." Shane whipped his tertiary screen into place, throwing external cameras up with the scanner overlay. "I want second line in 12-Beta formation. First line, you're with me. Arrow Strike. Third line, back the fuck up and start a net sweep. Show me lights, pilots!"
Fifteen green lights popped up on Shane's console.
"We're starlit!" Shane announced. "Go, go, go!
Now, he could forget about the rest of his squad, trusting them to do what needed doing. All of Shane's focus narrowed to the task. The Metros had been re-outfitted recently with the fastest sleekest mono-pods that money could buy. Pair that with the best trained squad in the corps and they had led in claims for two solars running. Now, they were well on their way to a third.
This moon was smaller than their usual targets, but their surveys had pinged back some rich veins of rare minerals. They would bag it, tag it and within two solar rotations, their bank accounts would swell as the Metro Corps miners set to work.
Shane preferred claiming colony-possible worlds, even if they paid a little less. Finding people homes came with a pleasant buzz on top of other successes. But money and winning was money and winning.
One of the Buzzard mono-pods started clipping towards him and Shane focused in. He waited until they thought they had him in stun distance then smashed his engines to a stop, dropped down several clicks and whipped himself into a tighter spiral that made it almost impossible for stun strikers to get a fix on him.
Hayden and JJ swept in and pinned them in, knocking out their engines in duel stun blasts, so perfectly timed it could've been used as a training video.
The goal was in sight. The moon had five prime landing spots and Shane had optimized flight paths for all of them. His sudden dive had put him in line with number three. Taking manual control, he threw himself against his harness. Flying a mono-pod took absolute concentration and more muscles than the human body technically had. The vehicle was your other skin, the exoskeleton optimized for survival and not comfort.
It took strength, discipline, and tenacity to last in a mono-pod. The average stint of a pilot across the corps was three solars, before their bodies or minds broke down with the strain. Shane's squad averaged five solars and he was on the verge of his sixth.
Piloting was his life. At five solars old, Shane had slid into his father's old mono-pod for the first time. It had been love, even though the rickety thing could barely get off the ground. For the next fifteen solars of Shane's life, all of his passion and energy went to a singular goal: be the best. And he'd achieved it and kept on achieving it.
"Neutralized fourteen of them!" JJ's voice snapped in Shane's ears. "There's a fifteenth still loose. We're on your tail, but if they come from the side we're not going to close fast enough to nail them. You good?"
"I have it," Shane said with perfect calm. He rolled his shoulders and the pod shuddered around him.
He ran his hand over the controls, the intricate memorized dance hitting as he transformed the pod into it's landing formation. It meant going blind for fourteen seconds. Dangerous, but Shane knew exactly where the fifteenth Buzzard was: too fucking far to catch him now. The dipping spiral had accelerated him and he was going to have a rough landing. Everyone forgot how much damage Shane was willing to take to get where he was going.
The moon had no atmosphere to break his speed and no gravity, so he was all on thrusters as he rolled himself and by the extension the pod into a spear with the single, all-important spike at the end. His sensors rushed back online, screaming klaxons alarms for the strength of the impact and the too-late Buzzard. The chalky red rock rushed at him and Shane hit with the speed of meteorite, the spike smashing through layers of copper dust untouched for millions of solars.
CELESTIAL OBJECT 393482.2.133.01 HAS BEEN CLAIMED FOR THE METROPOLITAN COLLECTIVE COOPERATION. ANY FURTHER INTERFERENCE BY RIVAL CORPORATIONS WILL BE TAKEN AS AN ACT OF AGGRESSION AS ESTABLISHED WITH THE 15TH ITERATION OF THE ACCORDS OF CLAIMED PROPERTY.
"Status?" Hollander asked the computer.
"Pod is flight ready. Repairs required immediately," the mechanical voice reported. "Pilot has several major contusions. Medical has been alerted to check for internal hemorrhaging."
"Fuuck," Shane groaned and let his head fall back on his seat.
"You alive, Holzy?" Hayden asked.
"No," Shane told him with a grin. "We got fourteen of fifteen, huh?"
"You know it!" Hayden laughed. "Get up, you lazy shit, we're done here. Unless you need a hand?"
"I got it," Shane assured him, then widened the communication so his whole squad could hear him. "Good work everyone. Line leads, any injuries?"
"Clear."
"Clear."
"Clear."
"All right. Send me your reports, but should be a clean exit. Let's roll it back."
Shane didn't give himself any more recovery time. He rolled back out, snapping back into position and took the leaping launch up into space, even as his body complained of the abuse.
Hanging against the vast black, his squad threaded through the temporarily neutralized Buzzard mono-pods. The corps agreed on knockouts only lasted an hour. Just enough time for a head start to the next mark. The Buzzards would come back online pissed off. This kind of claim was their bread and butter. They'd need every second of lead time even with the long journey to their next target.
When Shane got in close enough to link up, he started ceding pieces of piloting to the computer. Hayden's pod clicked into his and then JJ's, the slight shudder always a bit of a relief. They were there. They'd all made it out again with a win under their belts.
"You're a mad man, Hollander!" One of the new guys shouted as the second line lashed in. "I've never seen anyone do that and live!"
"Welcome to the Metros, rookie," JJ cackled. "That's just a Tuesday."
Line reports came in as they hurtled through the black. Shane reviewed them on one screen as he monitored their docking maneuvers on the other. The third screen slotted back into console, the input unnecessary now.
It was rumored that Rozanov flew with all three screens active the whole time. A part of his legend that had snowballed out of control. Some people said he used four like a total psycho.
Shane touched his thigh, rubbing his thumb over his D.N. mark. The second one. Not the primary one they all had on their necks, visible through their suits. So like the one Hayden had had amended five solars ago, Jackie's code glowing a gentle green for anyone to see.
"We're ready for you Squad Lead. Guidance interface live."
"Thanks, Station," Shane said, putting both hands on the controls where they belonged. "We're coming in. Minimal damage. Please tell Maintenance to work on pods 91 and 32 first, they took heavy impact. Rubbernecking, but they lost some paneling."
"You got it, Squad Lead."
The enormous Metro carrier loomed large in the windows behind Shane's screens. It was a whale in the ocean of stars and the mono-pods only tuna in comparison. Odd that the tuna were the reason for the whale. Shane had never thought about it that way until Ruby Pike had gotten obsessed with Earth marine animals and made the sensible children's comparison. Now he couldn't unsee it.
The bay doors opening slowly to take them in. Their fifteen-man squad all landed smoothly, locked in. Swallowed up. Then there was interminable wait for the bay doors to close and the docking cycle to finish pumping in breathable air.
It was too much time to think. So Shane got an early start on compiling his report, pulling in his line leaders quick and dirty analysis. Unfortunately, it had all gone so well that there wasn't much to add. He even beefed up the repair requests, outlining specifics that the Maintenance could find all on their own.
His own poor 24 had actually taken the most damage, but everyone knew by now that no one touched Hollander's pod except Hollander and if they were very lucky, an assistant from high-level Maintence ranking to hold his toolbox. It was his little eccentricity as admired , mocked, and gossiped about as Rozanov's screens.
Shane wished he could start working on the pod right now. Instead, he had to hit send on the report and wait. Over the speakers, his squad was winding down, talking shit to each other about who had been a little slow or out of alignment.
Then they started talking about women. A few of the guys had found temporary partners on staff, something that was constantly advised against. There were no consequences though, if you did. It was hard to keep people chaste and genderless for lunars away from home and the corp did like pilot babies, no matter how they came into the world.
"What about you, Holzy? Gonna come out with us tonight? Hit up the 5-forward bar?" Uther asked.
"Not tonight, thanks," he said.
The usual razzing cycled through, but JJ deftly turned them away to the next thing by starting up the age-old debate about recycled whiskey versus the onboard brewed beer and that was enough to take the heat off Shane.
Hayden dialed into the private channel again, just the two of them, in reality about a hundred feet apart, but their voices making it intimate and close.
"You gotta do one night this week. The new guys want to talk to you outside of work."
"I know," Shane said. "Tomorrow is fine. I just don't want to be there right after a win. Everyone will be fucked up in an hour."
"Want to hit the g-courts or did you take too hard a hit down there for it?" Hayden offered.
"Let's do a round," Shane decided. "If I get cleared."
"Sounds good, ping me when they free you."
Really what Shane wanted to do was go to medical, make his report and then go to his niche of a room and see if he had any communications from the latest relay. But Shane had a schedule that he forced himself to keep because he knew he did better on the longer outings when he did socialize a little.
One evening with Hayden every 3-5 days. One squad evening every 5-7 days. One night in the leadership lounge every 7-14 days, even though Shane hated it there and he had to wear his dress uniform. Send a communication to parents every other day whether he'd heard from them or not. Send a communication to Rose every 3-5 days.
And then there was the schedules that Shane didn't have to force himself to keep. Practice drills, flight simulations, maintenance checks and the single communication that didn't require reminders.
"You are a go to disembark," the Station Lead said. "Medical is waiting at bay door 12, Squad Leader Hollander."
"Thank you."
Shane keyed in his release code. Harness, helmet and chair locks disengaged and he was standing, vulnerable in only his flight suit and on his own power once more.
Exiting the mono-pod was bittersweet. Crusted over with sweat and a bit of blood, he did desperately want to leave, but he missed the protective shell immediately. His muscles all ached, not just from the crash, but the regular demands of manual piloting.
Touching the bold '24' painted on the nose of pod, Shane at last parted from it and stood, reborn and wrung out on the bay floor. He had to touch every line of the red and blue paint, then gave the pod's shell a pat, before turning on his heels and walking away.
His squad all went through their own rituals, superstitions rife among them. The days when pilots died in massive numbers were a full generation behind them, but the memory lingered and everyone remembered to be grateful they'd survived today. You thanked your pod, no matter how weird it looked.
"My man!" JJ swung in and slapped Shane on the back. "Great tuck and roll. I thought you'd bounce once for sure."
"The orbit worked in my favor," Shane said plastering on a grin. His hair was stuck to his scalp. Maybe he should shave it like some of the other guys did, but he never could bring himself too. "That stunner was a beaut."
"Eh, that was a cakewalk. Right, Pike?"
"Honestly it was embarrassing for them," Hayden agreed, smacking JJ's shoulder. "Poor fucking assholes. They're coming down the ranks hard."
There was more of that messy assessment and then Shane was in the waiting hands of the medical team. The scans came up clean, just bruising and three cracked ribs. A quick knit-n-rub patch had the ribs fixed, but the bruising was left to heal on it's own. They had time for him go about it naturally and the accelerant always had side effects. Shane was prone to nose bleeds from them, particularly.
Done with Medical, Shane still had bureaucracy to take care of. He headed up to Command. It was always busy up there, people rushing around in important circles. Back home, in interviews, Shane often got asked if he ever wanted to join command, not an atypical career path for a pilot, but Shane found the thought depressing. He was a pilot because he wanted to pilot. Command was talking endlessly, making hard decisions and giving speeches. Not for him.
He'd retire. He'd go home. He'd…something. Nothing he could consider seriously right now. He had solars left. The longest serving pilot had run for fourteen solars. Shane could make it fifteen. He wanted to.
When Shane stepped into Command, everyone stopped and saluted him. Shane saluted back. Captain Theriault was waiting for him.
"Excellent work as usual, Squad Leader," Theriault said solemnly.
"Thank you, Captain."
"I read through your reports. Anything off the record to add?"
"No, Captain." Shane liked records. He kept everything on record. Theriault always asked anyway.
"All right then. This was a good win today, but we're after much bigger game. We're re-routing."
"New target?" Shane asked hopefully. He hadn't been particularly interested in continuing through this system, battering through the dying Buzzards.
"The Sci-Soc threw us a report an hour ago. They picked up one of the Admiral drones and followed it on a hunch. It was headed to a binary star system with a Goldilocks world. Same size as Montreal-5."
"That's huge!"
Shane's heart knocked in his chest. That wasn't just a colony planet. That was a secondary base world. The thing every corp lusted after. A base of operations at this end of the spiral would put them in prime launch position for the next arm. They would set up the corps for generations of successful claims.
"Let's not get excited," Theriault said, even though his eyes were bright. "We don't have full survey back yet. But it could be a massive win. Forget first in rank, Hollander, they'll write your name on a moon. We're not the only ones who got the tip though. Seems like at least two other cruisers are headed that way, unidentified so far, but one of them is likely the Admirals."
They were doing well this solar. Hunter was back on his game after solars off it, annoyingly.
"How far out?"
"It's a haul. We're risking a good length of the contract on it, but Central gave the nod. A full lunar at maximum speed. Fuel burn will be- well. I'll worry about that."
A full lunar. Max speed. That meant no outside drills, sims-only. Shane could run the squad through workouts in the morning, sims in the afternoon, but that would still be a lot of open hours. The guys would fill them. The ship was set up to handle bored pilots, the entertainment decks filled with things from the educational to the borderline illicit.
Little of it appealed to Shane.
"That's fantastic news," Shane said. Because it was. Even if he had a lunar of days ahead of him to sort out. "I'll keep the squad ready."
"I know you will. Dismissed."
Shane's room was close to the bay. All of their rooms were just in case the cruiser stumbled onto something interesting and they needed to deploy fast. To make up for it, they all had their own spaces and the real luxury of windows. Squad Leader even got the one on the end so Shane had the sheer indulgence of two windows and only sharing one wall with someone else. Hayden was to his left and he always had his headphones on, either sending comms home or listening to one of his thousand shows he kept on. Shane never needed to watch another show again because Hayden would tell him the whole plot if he showed any interest.
The room was only big enough for a bunk, a locker, a small desk and the all-in-one bathroom stall that was both an amazing luxury and awful. They all complained about them so Shane didn't feel bad about hating it. Some of the other cruisers had communal bathrooms for the squad which had it's own downsides, but at least they didn't have to use the toilet in the same four cubic feet they showered in.
There wasn't enough time to check for comms which was probably for the best. He couldn't afford to get distracted. Shane changed into shipboard clothes, dumping his flight suit into the laundry. His bruises were starting to purple and ache, but nothing that would really slow him down. Giving himself one last stern warning about checking comms early, Shane left his room.
Hayden was already waiting in the hallway.
"Hey, man! Jackie said Amber has her first tooth! Look."
There were worse things than looking at pictures of kids Shane actually knew and cared about. Amber did have a tooth, the twins had won an award for an art project at school, and Arthur had gone on some kind of nature hike bringing back pockets of fat seeds that Jackie had dutifully planted in cups on the windowsill.
"I miss green," Shane said.
"Damn, me too," Hayden said, shaking his head. "Maybe we can stop by hydroponics after we smack some ball around."
There was always a court free this late in the day. The cruiser's simulated evening crept in as they whipped the ball around the court, somersaulting through the lessened gravity, and kept their paddles whirling. Hayden edged closer to a win than usual which Shane internally blamed on his bruises.
"Practice is helping," he said aloud.
"I'm going to beat you one of these days," Hayden said, launching himself off the floor into a lazy barrel roll. "And then I'll have to retire out so you can never take it back. You want to sneak in a shower?"
"We shouldn't," Shane said, glancing around. It was quiet.
"Hollander," Pike sighed. "What are we going to do with you? Come on, literally no one cares. Water allotment is water allotment."
"It's for staff," Shane muttered, but gave in.
Technically, the gym showers were for staff, but Hayden was right. Only the biggest rule sticklers cared if pilots used them. Their water allotments were all generous enough. And it was nice to have a shower somewhere you could stretch out a little. The heat helped soothe the worst of the bruising too.
"You eat yet?" Hayden asked, when they were both toweling off.
"When would that have happened?"
"I dunno, maybe the Captain was so happy with you that he treated you to some upgraded rations."
"You have a really warped idea of what goes on up there."
Hayden laughed, "If you could tell me anything, I'd know more, but as long as it's wrapped up in secrets, I reserve the right to make shit up. Come on, let's get dinner."
Dinner was the nutritionally compact units that had gained the unappealing nickname of 'nugs' and some green beans. Shane didn't mind nugs as much as some of the other guys. He liked them better than the green beans really which had book cooked to a limp and unappealing shape to hide their age. He ate both. They were almost at the end of fresh grown veg now. He'd miss them soon enough.
A full lunar. Fuck.
"You know something," Hayden determined.
"I know a lot of things," Shane said.
"I'm not fishing, man. I know you can't tell me. But give me a temperature?"
"Hot in a good way."
"Really? Cause last time you said that we cinched first in the rankings six lunars into the solar!"
Shane nodded, acknowledging and suppressed a smile as Hayden did a muted victory dance. They ate, they talked a little, they walked back to their rooms and said good night. JJ was only first heading out, but he was always good about not pushing Shane to come out once he'd given a no, so he only said good night too.
At last Shane was alone in his room and with plenty of time. He took out his comm and checked for messages. Three. One from his parents, one from his accountant and yes. One from the LIL-Y. No one was looking at Shane's communications. The Metro Corp had it's bad side, but they weren't the kind that surveilled it's employees constantly. Personal comms were personal. But Shane used the codename anyway, hiding reality under an automatic relay name. It made him feel a little safer.
Not safe entirely. Shane wasn't sure he'd ever felt entirely safe.
He grabbed his headset and jammed it on. Likely No one could hear him in his room, even without the headset, but it wasn't home. It paid to be careful. His parents' faces appeared on the screen. It was a good long comm , ten minutes of chatter from his Dad about work and the garden, ten minutes more from Mom going over the meetings she'd had in his absence and catching him up family news. They'd even visited Jackie this week.
Shane easily recorded his reply. Their claim flights were all intensely recorded, edited and turned into entertainment for civilians. His parents watched every one of his rushes, pouring over them, but they liked to hear it from him too and since he had little else to talk about, he just described it all again. Then he added on details about Hayden from them to pass on to Jackie if they saw her again. Friendly simple things.
The things Hayden had told him up front he told Jackie to give to Shane's parents if they asked. The innocuous details of their lives. Nothing scary, nothing sad. Just flavor in the absence of first hand experience.
Then Shane diligently listened to his accountant's comm, took notes and replied to them too.
Only once all of that was done did Shane allow himself to tap on the final communication.
Ilya's face flickered to life in front of him and Shane paused the video immediately before Ilya could say a word. He was sitting in his mono-pod to record, a habit of his. People loved to talk about how Shane did his own repairs, but Ilya did too. He was just more generous with the mechanics and worked alongside of them often pretending to that he was assisting them instead of fine tuning things himself.
Shane stared hungrily at him, traced the line of Ilya's jaw with his eyes and when that didn't suffice, with a fingertip, uncaring of the smudges it left on the screen. Ilya had a fatigue hanging around him that Shane didn't like. It had been there for the last few comms. He'd asked about it and gotten no reply so far.
Shane pressed play.
"Shane, hello," Ilya smiled, his face transforming from tired to alight with energy immediately. "I think you will catch this one very soon after I send it. I believe we are in the same sector. Exciting, yes? Send something back as soon as you get this and maybe I will get it quickly. I know we are not supposed to say this, but I do not think we are going to anything the Metro will care about."
"We care about everything," Shane said indignantly.
"I know, I know, you care about all these things," Ilya said with a wink and it went straight to Shane's heart. And a little lower. "We staked a claim this week too. Meteor field with grade B veins. Nothing they would report on to you, but pretty good for us."
"I'm sorry," Shane murmured to him. The Great Ilya Rozanov, who had staked claims on twenty-five of the thirty top producing planetary claims, reduced to being happy about grade B meteor fields.
All Shane's fault. His plan. A plan Ilya had willingly gone along with to bring them closer.
"Hayes has invented a new game," Ilya went on, leaving Shane behind this time. "It is very stupid and we are all very obsessed. We use the ball from the g-court in regular gravity. Good for strength building and breaking your back trying to roll it. I will teach it to you when we are home again."
Home. Ilya thought of Shane's lake house as home now. His chest ached.
"I miss you," Ilya sighed. "So much. I hate you for doing this to me. For solars, I wanted only to be out in the black and away from my home. This was the place I wanted to be the most. Now, I count days until we are planetside again like a homesick rookie."
Shane closed his eyes. "Me too. I want to go home too. And be here. I don't know how to do both."
"Ah, I should not use our time to be like this," Ilya said, shaking himself like he could buck off the feeling. "I hope you are in your bed because I have a good one for you tonight."
The fantasy Ilya laid out wasn't particularly filthy by their standards, but watching him peel off his flight suit enough to get a hand inside it and around himself to jerk off while he talked about it was. Shane listened to Ilya's breathing go ragged and harsh, before he took himself in hand too. He jerked himself ruthlessly, matching Ilya's pace as he described a long thorough rim job. With Ilya's voice in his ear, his face on the screen, Shane could almost imagine that he was there, so close and yet not touching.
Shane came only a few seconds before Ilya and he lay there wrung out, listening to Ilya's harsh intakes of breath, slowly smoothing out.
"Shane," Ilya said reverently.
"Ilya," Shane whispered back.
"Listen to me," Ilya said. "Do not die before I see you again or I will do terrible things to your ashes."
"What the fuck is wrong with you?" Shane asked him. "I love you too."
"Ah, time warnings, hello," Ilya grumbled, hand reaching out to swipe at some notification. "Maxed out again. Fine. Send me something back, even just a minute. Show me how wrecked you are from me, yes? I love you. "
The comm ended. Shane hit record before the darkness could get to him. He was a mess, but Ilya would want to see him flushed and hair a wreck from thrashing a little against the pillows.
"Hey," he said. "Same quadrant, huh? You know that's already too much intel. Maybe the Centaurs are after smaller game than us, but you never know. Play it safe, okay? We ate the last of the green beans tonight. I remember you said you hated them, but they're better than no vegetables at all. Do you still have anything fresh left? I hope so. We staked a moon today. Ungraded, but it's mineral rich."
Shane paused, trying to think of what else Ilya would want to know. They were still so new to this talking thing, only getting in snatches of actual conversation when they were home together. A collection of days that added up to less than a lunar really. A lunar, a decade. A few conversations, a lifetime.
What did you say with all that on your mind?
All Shane was sure of was that Ilya always listened to him now. Like every word mattered even when he deemed it 'boring'.
"I played some g-ball with Hayden today and I kept thinking about that afternoon when we played. Not just how the game ended, but like…I don't know. How much fun it was. I liked seeing you laugh and spin around like that. I thought you were going to hurl, but you just got dizzy and kissed me a million times. I want that more. I miss that. I miss you."
Pausing again, Shane's eyes flicked to the little red light. Hopefully it would feel to Ilya like he was looking him right in the eye. "I love you. I hope this reaches you before you go to sleep. I want to think of us going to sleep at the same time. Good night."
He ended the recording and hit send. If Ilya was right, the comm would go to relay and the Centaur's carrier would pick it up in a matter of minutes instead of hours or days. Maybe Ilya really could fall asleep with Shane's voice in his ears.
A quick clean up, lights off, and Shane brought up Ilya's comm to him and started it at the beginning. Even though the sexy parts stayed sexy, Shane didn't get aroused the second time. He fell asleep, listening to Ilya describe how he would kiss him, slow and sweet while they made love and it changed the shape of Shane's dreams.
When Shane woke up, his hand clutched at his thigh, thumb pressed into his secondary D.N. mark so hard it felt as tender and raw as the day he'd lasared it there. It glowed it's healthy green. Somewhere, not even that far, it's twin glowed on Ilya's thigh as secret as a kiss pressed there. Without much hope, Shane checked for a comm. There wasn't another video, but to his surprised delight there were two lines of text. Smart. Ilya was so smart. Even if they were drifting further away from each other, that small a bit of data would fly across the relay.
We only have broccoli left which is a terrible vegetable, but I will eat them tonight for you, so you know I will not die of bad nutrition. I love you more than I hate them, see?
Shane read the lines a dozen times, then with a lump in his throat he deleted the video and the text. It was too risky to save them and he used to not even think about it. Now each time, it hurt a little more. Like he was erasing Ilya himself.
His alarm went off. Shane got up and ran through his morning routine. No drills today. He'd learned early that pushing the squad a day after the mission only bought him complaints and low morale. Instead he went back down to the gym, getting in his run and his yoga and his weights. It was all line staff there, everyone treating him with quiet deference. He didn't risk stealing a second shower with so many people there. It was rude enough that he did it once this week already.
Instead, he used his personal stall, watching his allotment trickle down.
At home, he and Ilya took long showers together, relishing the endless supply and each other. Did the Centaurs have a communal shower or the stalls? Shane should've asked him. Ilya would've taken it the wrong way and spun him some fantasy of being on a carrier together forced to share a single trickling stream. Or maybe that was the right way.
Shane didn't even get hard at the thought. He stared down at his disinterested dick with confusion. It lay there limp and unmoved. It's master was too far away now, apparently. Fuck.
At least there was 24 to work on. Shane gathered up his personal toolbox and went down to the hanger. The damage was mostly cosmetic, but the wiring on the left flank had taken a hard hit. Shane lost most of the day in grooming through the fine hairs of copper that kept him alive.
"Why don't the other guys do this?" Shane asked Ilya, the two of them squatting before Ilya's personal vehicle. Even planetside, Ilya preferred to go fast. The slick red rover wasn't a mono-pod, but it was impressive for something that needed wheels to go.
"Fix things?" Ilya asked. "They trust mechanics more than themselves, maybe."
"Maybe." Shane frowned, and handed him the dexadriver when he put his hand out for it.
"Or maybe it's because we know the secret."
"We do?" Shane asked, watching the trickle of sweat bead down the side of Ilya's neck. A tiny rivulet that made Shane terribly thirsty.
"Mm, we do," Ilya said, glancing at him with soft smile. "To do a thing well, you must know all it's inside parts. Run your hands through them. Make them yours. Yes?"
"Yes." Shane smiled back, reaching for him. "Exactly."
"Sir?" A low-level officer approached.
"Yes?" Shane asked, focus staying on popping out the last of the dents. He'd polish them too.
"Command requests you upstairs for a mission briefing."
"Acknowledged, thank you," Shane muttered.
Tucking his tools into the mono-pod, Shane followed the officer back up to Command. Delay would be disrespectful at best. Everyone knew Squad Leader Hollander was always respectful.
The news must've spilled from the inner circle out because the usual energetic hum of Command had reached a new pitch of excitement. Theriault was huddled with all the department heads and they welcomed Shane into their small group. The monitors in front of them were displaying trajectories, coordinates, timelines and a data feed coming from the Sci-Soc team. Shane read through it quickly, half-listening to Theriault explain the details of the find.
There were some discrepancies that Shane saw immediately, but he kept his mouth shut. No one wanted pilots to know about atmospheric conditions for long-term settlement. That was for wiser minds than them. The first time Shane had spoken up in a meeting like this, he'd regretted it for weeks.
"They do not like when we know things," Ilya grumbled. Both of them were in their pods, waiting for an exhibition match to start. The kind of bullshit bureaucrats loved and Shane used to hate until they became a way to see Ilya in the middle of a long contract. He loved hearing Ilya's voice in his ear as he flew, even if he was giving him shit. "I tell them that there is no chance we can land there. The first geologist's reports are clear, but they say the new reports are better. Stupid."
"We look at this stuff longer than they do sometimes," Shane agreed with a huff.
"Ah well. We get to say 'I told you so', at least."
"I don't. I stopped pointing that shit out a long time ago."
"Oh, Hollander," Ilya said with a despairing look. "You are too fucking nice for your own fucking good."
"Captain," a nervy navigation officer appeared, edging into the group. "I'm sorry for interrupting, but we have an incoming comm from another carrier. Non-Metro. The signal is shaky, but it's marked urgent and with distress indicators?"
Theriault grimaced, "Put it on screen."
The navigator squeezed through the group and their fingers flew over the keypad until a video came up. A face wavered (a middle-aged man with a shock of dark hair) and then snapped into clarity, the voice (steady, deep, concerned) following.
"-lease. This is Captain Brandon Wiebe of the Centaur Carrier, designation OT-2331B. We have been struck by a massive piece of debris left behind in an unclaimed meteor field. Our engines are offline and most of our powerbanks shattered on impact. We require a new powercell to complete any possible repairs. In the meantime, our life support systems are restricted. Our best minds have agreed that we can eek out five days more at best before critical shutdown.
"We have two hundred and fifty-seven civilians on board. We cannot open bay doors to even release our pilots and we are too far from our bases for our emergency evacs to have any hope of reaching them in time. We're not asking for or expecting any heroics. We need a single powercell with the promise that Ottowa Corp will repay you for the full cost of the item as well as an additional fee for your aid. If you could give us a bit of a jump start that'd be useful too. Additional fees paid for that."
Captain Wiebe's steady voice wavered, "Please. We know this is not standard operating procedure, but there are good people on this ship. They don't deserve to die. If you receive this message before 2230 on common date 12.03.05.20 than we are still alive and can still be helped."
The message was likely only hours old. That time and date were still five days away. Combined with the rapidity of Ilya's text arrival this morning, they couldn't be more than a day's flight away.
"That is some shit luck," Theriault muttered.
"Their equipment is old as dirt." Jones, second-in-command, sounded faintly distasteful. "We could've survived a strike like that, I'll bet. That rust bucket should've been decommissioned solars ago."
"Bad things happen in space. New or old," Theriault said mildly. "Has anyone forgotten their lessons on that? Haven't we all had a close call?"
Jones subsided. Shane went on measuring his breath. It would be fine. Theriault was smart. He'd get them there in plenty of time.
"Lawrence," Theriault barked.
"Sir." The Chief of Communications was right there, already part of the huddle.
"Live record this reply and let's spend the extra credit to make sure it reaches them right away."
Good. That was good, Shane used all his energy on keeping his face blank and still. They would arrive, they would help. Maybe he and Ilya could have a nearly live conversation for once, ship-to-ship relay. That'd be nice. Especially because Ilya would likely be upset. No one liked to be reminded of how fragile ship life really was.
"Yes, sir." Lawrence took over the monitor now, entering in a long security code, then passing a few screens and putting in another. "Ready to record, sir."
"Captain Wiebe," Theriault said gravely, "I regret to inform you that Metro Carrier cannot turn around at this time. We are not at liberty from our corp to give away expensive supplies. We apologize for not being able to do more. Starlit peace to you and yours."
No one else said anything as Lawrence sent the message on. Shane waited for some protest, but everyone seemed to be in agreement.
"Is there someone else nearby that can help them?" Shane asked.
Everyone's attention fell on him. He'd managed to keep his voice steady and emotionless, so it must've been that he asked at all.
"You know the rules out here, Squad Leader," Theriault said with gravity. "We come prepared to die. Maybe someone else will help them, but we're all headed to the same place and it's not behind us."
"It would only be a day. A day for two hundred people," Shane pointed out, reasonably. "That's not much."
"It is when we're chasing the biggest claim we've had on offer for ten solars," Theriault said with a shake of his head. "And it would be two days. There and back again. Enough for the Admirals to stake claim and maybe the Raiders, if they're smart enough to track the drone too. We know they're close enough. We're not losing a secondary base world for a corp too stupid to properly outfit their carrier"
It was so final. So cold. Theriault had been born before the improvements of mono-pods and the Accord that put an end to the fatal violence of claims. Before it had become a sport, instead of a war. Maybe that was why he could be so calm about the deaths of an entire carrier. Maybe that's why all the old men he surrounded himself were staring at Shane like he was the one who was acting unusually.
Normally, Shane needed some time to process these kinds of unexpected shifts in a room. He would move his plans around carefully, re-wiring himself for what was required and make his move or apology hours or days later. But there was no time right now and this wasn't a faux pas at a party. The stakes had just become the highest they had ever been.
His piloting side kicked online. Pilots had to be calm under pressure. They had to make fast, decisive choices to get where they were going. And there was no better pilot in any of the corps. Save one.
"Understood," Shane said. "A shame to lose a competitor just when they were getting interesting."
"Ah," Theriault snorted. "Is that what was bothering you? Don't worry. You'll get plenty of fight out of the Admirals when we arrive. If you like, you can sign the condolences message we'll doubtless have to issue soon enough. All right?"
"Yes, thank you, captain," Shane said with no more emotion than he ever offered in Command.
Theriault whipped Captain Wiebe's face off the monitors. The Sci-Soc data returned. The meeting went on. Externally, Shane listened and even made occasional notes on his tablet. Internally, he was building out a plan. He didn't have enough time to make it a good one. The window for it all of it to work would be small. Fast. Decisive. Explosive. That was the best Shane could aim for.
When they were finally dismissed with giddy back pats, the solemnity of the Centaurs' fate already consigned to memory, Shane left. He was careful to not be the first to go, and stayed with the crowd. He got off on his deck and walked at a regular speed to his room. Hayden had left a voice note, telling him to come to the lounge when he'd showered and eaten for a night with the guys as he'd promised.
A night with the guys. Shane listened to Hayden's voice for what could very well be the last time. He didn't leave a note for him in return. If anyone suspected Hayden was in on this, it would be the end of his career too.
Safely in his room, Shane stripped down and checked his N.D. to find it still green. Of course it was. The message was hours old and Wiebe had said five days. Ilya was all right. He was fine. He likely hadn't even heard Theriault's cold-blooded dismissal yet.
Fuck, would Wiebe tell his people? Would he lie? Shane hoped he lied. No one deserved that clean cut to be their last contact with the world outside their ship.
Surveying his room, Shane grabbed his communicator, his photo of his parents, and after a moment's consideration, his spare flight suit. The last one, he rolled down tight and just managed to jam into a pocket. It bulged, but he would be grateful for a backup eventually. There was no bathroom on a mono-pod, only a waste elimination setup.
The nutrient soup that got pumped into pilots as they flew would sustain him for a day or two, but he'd need more. With a sharp hit with his elbow, he popped the emergency panel by his door. It was intended for worst-case scenario quarantine events and most people didn't even know they were there.
Today, Shane's obsessive need to research every ship he stepped onto paid off again. He pulled out the entire secreted box. Enough nugs for the flight out, water packets for when he'd recycled his piss too much to be useful, and some first aid stuff. Perfect. That, plus the more stripped down emergency kit in the mono-pod would be enough.
Carrying the red emergancy box around might raise a few flags, so Shane emptied it's contents into his secondary tool box. Having failsafes and backups always paid off. No matter how boring it might see, Ilya.
Without a look back, Shane left behind the room that had been his second home for five solars. Fuck it. The shower setup had sucked anyway.
No one paid Shane any mind as he went back to working on his mono-pod. Or at least looking like he was working. He waited until no one was close by to store the extra toolbox and the extra flight suit, strapping them down behind the pilot seat. He would need every inch of his precious cargo space for other things.
Polishing and babying the mono-pod also covered for Shane making some illicit adjustments. Things he had known to do for solars, but couldn't try before. The Accord held pretty firm on the things you could and couldn't do to a mono-pod, but the Accord was only for corps pilots during claims.
Shane as an independent entity had never signed the fucking Accord and the only thing he was going to go claim was some human decency. He made the goddamn adjustments. Some more analytical, quieter part of him got a little excited, even. It'd be interesting to see what it would be like to fly entirely unfettered.
The critical moment came. Shift change. The vast majority of the Maintenance clocking off for sleep and only the skeleton crew of the third shift coming on duty. Mechanics on third shift was for repairs to things that were hard to access when more people were around. They were direct people, generally uninterested in asking what anyone else was up to.
They were also familiar with Squad Lead Hollander's need to see his mono-pod in perfect condition over getting enough sleep.
Especially Third Shift Mechanical Lead Dobbs, who had gotten so sick of Shane's many requests that he had given him the codes to the basic utility and storage closets with the understanding that everything got put back where it belonged. Shane had scrupulously obeyed. He didn't want to get Dobbs in trouble.
Sorry, Dobbs. You'll get a write up and maybe two hundred people will live.
Letting himself into Storage B, Shane was confronted with a door that he absolutely should not have the code too.
Which would be a problem, he if hadn't casually memorized Dobbs' code by hovering over his shoulder at least once a lunar for the past five solars. They should really make him cycle it out, something Shane would've advised if anyone wanted to listen.
Too bad.
The door slid open and rows of expensive replacement parts gleamed in carefully maintained rows. Inventory on the Metro Carrier was immaculate. There was no time to browse, unfortunately. With a list that he'd built listening to his Captain plan a claim while damning people to death, Shane pulled his most frequently needed spare parts and started tossing them into a smaller empty container.
He stuck to things he could realistically use from inside the mono-pod. External damage would be what it was. He'd have to fly right and keep himself intact.
At the very back of the enormous storage space were the extra powercells. One alone could keep a mono-pod flying for solars. For a carrier, you would need dozens for a single mission. If Wiebe was asking for only one, he probably really needed two and keeping his request realistic to get it done at all.
Powercells. It was a very simple name for something so unbelievably expensive. Shane had only been allowed to install them himself under the strict supervision of a Mechanic Shift Lead. He'd never been permitted to take one casually.
But he had held them in his hands. He knew the shape and weight of them. Cradling one in his arms was exactly like holding one of the Pike babies. Such a small thing to have so much power. A simple metal canister and in it, the captured power of suns. Worth more than an entire solar of Shane's very impressive salary.
From the racks of dozens of them, Shane carefully pulled out three and put them at the top of his container. Might as well have a spare. Carrying out his haul, Shane made sure the doors re-engaged their locks behind him. There was security cameras everywhere. He didn't attempt to hide. This was not a heist. Everyone would know what happened soon enough.
The storage container wouldn't fit in Shane's limited cargo hold, so he had to transfer everything into the little niche. The powercells were priority, so they went in first and he packed everything else in around them.
The bay had cleared out significantly. There was a lone mechanic halfway into the floor, probably working on some misalignment in landing locks. Shane had never been nonchalant a day in his life, but he did know how to look busy and important. He walked across the bay into the quiet control room. With all the mono-pods docked and quiescent, there was no need to staff it. Any emergency would wake the poor personnel who slept directly behind this room windowless bunks for that exact purpose.
The door wasn't even locked. Who would want to break into a control room? It was full of obscure knobs, switches and screens. Too complicated for someone to come in and fuck up easily.
If one wanted to launch all fifteen mono-pods following protocol, it was probably next to impossible. Shane didn't give a shit about following protocol right now. He flipped up a plastic protector on the wall over the light switch and hit the single red button that he'd seen a thousand times in training videos.
EMERGENCY BAY EVACUATION
Klaxons started sounding immediately and the giant heaving engines of the bay doors creaked to life.
ALL PERSONNEL MUST EVACUATE THE BAY. THIS IS NOT A DRILL. EVACUATE IMMEDIATELY
The lone mechanic sprung out of the floor and ran towards the exit, looking around frantically for what might have set off the alarms. Shane ran in the opposite direction. In the case of emergency, the mono-pods auto-unlocked, in case they were endangered and could be launched out to save them.
Not to help in the emergency, Shane considered for the first time, as he charged to 24 before the great bay doors opened into the fatal vacuum of space. The entire carrier culture was focused on the pilots and their pods. Maybe they valued the lives of even their own people less than Shane had thought only this morning. Shane shoved that thought aside in favor of swinging himself into the pilot seat. Helmet on, harness locked into place, Shane was one with his pod again.
"24, requesting clearance to leave," he muttered to himself, unable to leave without at least a little of the usual protocol, even if it was only to himself. "Granted? No? Too bad."
The launch sequence flew off his fingers and 24 gave it's waking shudder, rising off the ground. The bay doors were opening and Shane didn't wait for them to finish their gargantuan yawn. People were definitely waking up now, running for their stations. The alert had reached Command and assessment would begin. Hesitation was the difference between success and failure.
Shane could not accept failure.
He took off, turning sharply to line himself up. As soon as the doors were open just wide enough to fit, he slid through them like a thread through the eye of a needle. He was out. He was fucking gone.
Pulling out his monitors, Shane called for the location of every major carrier in the sector. No one had locked him out yet and he only needed one set of coordinates before they thought to do it. There! He grabbed them and saved them to a local computer, then started the navigation systems.
His headset started crackling, the computer announcing so many incoming communications that they practically ran over each other. Shane silenced all of them. The Command channel crackled through anyway and he let the Captain ream him out in an unheard stream.
Navigation ran fast, but it needed another minute or two. Shane picked a direction and gunned it away from the carrier. None of the other mono-pods would have his specific modifications now. Even if any of them had ever been able to keep up with him before, they were at a loss now.
Security vehicles? Best of fucking luck. Those fuckers ran slower than the worst mono-pads.
When he was far enough away that Shane was out of range of the short-range blasters and too small for the long-range missiles, he paused. He hung there and stared at the silver blotch with it's proud blue and red stripes that was the Metro Carrier.
Shane opened his communicator to a full broad spectrum. Larger than he'd ever gone before. He hit record for good measure and set it up to relay not only to every ship with open comm in the sector, but as a recorded message sent to his parents directly with a note that read 'Sorry. Please release to the press if you think it'll help'.
"This is mono-pod pilot Shane Hollander of the Montreal Metropolitan Corporation. An hour ago, I was told by my captain that we would be ignoring a direct request for aide to a competing corps' ship currently stranded within a day's detour of our flight path. We have good odds of claiming a very important world and according to my commanding officers that supersedes the lives of over two hundred people we could definitely help.
"That's the way of things, I know. But I'm so sick of the way of things. I'm going to do my best to help because that's what we should do. If I survive, I will likely be arrested and tried. I am guilty. I am admitting to guilt right now. I am guilty of wanting two hundred people to live. I am guilty of stealing from my corp to ensure that that happens. I am in violation of my contract. I am guilty and I'm not sorry. Except to my parents and Hayden and JJ. This is…not how I wanted you to find out some things about me. I'm sorry for that. I love you."
Shane made eye contact with the red glowing button. He could leave it there. It was all damning enough. If he lived, he would never touch a mono-pod again. It was strange how freeing that was in this moment.
He could stop. He went on.
"I lied only once in this message. I would like to correct it for the record. My name is not Shane Hollander. As of two lunars ago, before the beginning of this contract, my name became Shane Hollander-Rozanov. I'm coming, love. I don't know if I can do it, but I have to try. See you soon, I hope."
Shane closed off the comms.
The navigation monitor locked on it's target. Ten hours. Not even a full day. Motherfucker.
"Fine," he said to himself. "Fine. Let's fucking go."
To the mono-pods behind him, pod 24 accelerated normally for a handful of seconds, then simply disappeared from visuals and close radar. A tiny point of light in a vast field of stars winking out.