Pursuit (Silver Cane Book 1) Read online

  Darklin stepped up next to the gurney and looked down at Silver. He offered her a broad and friendly smile. “My criminal days are behind me, Detective.” Darklin unclipped a strap on the gurney. “I was, in fact, doing my best to assist you.”

  “You have drugged, abducted and imprisoned me. How is that assisting?”

  “I don’t know who assaulted you, detective, but I moved quickly to get you out of danger the moment you were incapacitated. I brought you here to keep you safe.” Darklin unclipped the strap holding Silver’s arms to her sides.

  Silver sat up, drew the blazer off her hip and pointed it at Darklin. She saw the men in the shadows draw their pistols. Her neural processor activated her suits projectile defense field. “Why have I been restrained?”

  “It was just a precaution.” Darklin gestured to his men to lower their weapons. “I didn’t want you falling from the gurney and hurting yourself.”

  Silver climbed off the gurney. “Coris. I nearly had him.” Her link to Razor and Arty was missing. She tried to connect to the settlement AI. There was no link. “Where is my crim?”

  Silver started walking toward the doorway that she hoped would lead away from this dark room and every step sent waves of dizziness flooding over her. Darklin reached out and steadied her with a strong arm.

  “My men are scouring every dark corner of this settlement for the man you were pursuing.” Darklin led Silver back to the gurney where she steadied herself. “I don’t want him running around here any more than you do. It’s bad for business. But, hey,” Darklin smiled broadly, “not as bad for business as a dead cop.”

  The neural processor presented a toxicology report. Residual chemicals in Silver’s system were impairing mobility. The toxins would be neutralized in moments. Silver sat back on the gurney. “If I lose track of my crim...”

  “No need for threats here, Detective.” Darklin smiled and sat down next to Silver. “I’ve sealed the area. My men are tracking him down. I’ll have him for you soon.”

  Silver had already mapped the room and pinpointed the position of every person there. She’d observed their every shift of position and calculated weights and speeds for each of Darklin’s men. And then there was Darklin himself. He moved easily and lightly. He was strong. He was unarmed. He was perfectly at ease. He was confident that he was in no danger from Silver.

  “How long was I unconscious?”

  “Couple of hours.”

  Silver set a targeting program that would neutralize each of Darklin’s men and Darklin himself, a program that would activate and take control of her gun arm even if she took a bullet to the head. She climbed off the gurney. She tested her balance. She was recovered enough. Time to get back on the trail of Coris.

  “Take me to Coris.”

  Darklin stood up off the gurney and took a few steps toward the door. He held out a hand and invited Silver to walk with him. One of Darklin’s men opened the door. Bright cold light flooded into the room. Silver walked toward the open door and cancelled the targeting program.

  The walk was quiet save for the footsteps that echoed along the empty corridor. Silver mapped the positions of the men who walked behind her from their footsteps.

  “What crime is so bad that you have to pursue this crim across half the system? He’s not the bomber is he?” Darklin smiled at Silver.

  The destruction of the outer system SV server had brought disruption to the moons of Titan and some asteroid settlements. The disruption had been mercifully brief as Gov central had given the order to have the military provide emergency SV coverage by deploying the destroyer Valiant to the region. Everyone had heard of the explosion that had placed everyone’s safety and freedom at risk by disrupting the local surveillance coverage.

  “I can’t discuss an ongoing investigation, not even with an upstanding governor like yourself.”

  “So it is the bomber that you’re chasing.” Darklin smiled to himself. “Your silence gives you away, detective.”

  “Just take me to my crim,” Silver said, checking all the while for connection to SV. They were still in a SV shadow. There were a few shadows about the system, orbital SV servers provided coverage to almost every square centimeter but localized geological phenomena created some gaps. This settlement was lost in one of the largest SV gaps on the system. Silver realized this was not an accident.

  The settlement was still in its early construction phase. Modules had been planted and the composite walls of the settlement had been created by the mechtissue. Within its boundary other modules provided space for business and residential areas, and the gaps between them created the narrow corridors that Silver walked through now. Her neural processor was creating a map of the settlement and every step added detail.

  “You’re not familiar with our settlement?” Darklin asked with a hint of pride.

  “We know about your settlement. Gov central tolerates it. You are here because we choose not to dismantle it.”

  Darklin laughed. “Do you know why I built this settlement here?”

  “Because you were imprisoned on Frost and you got a feel for the cold?”

  Darklin’s laugh was full bodied and bounced off the hard composite walls. “I built it here because of the magnetite deposits in this area. Frost scientists think that an asteroid impact created an unusually high concentration. The universe created a perfect location for this settlement. We were meant to be here. This is probably the most important settlement in the entire system.”

  “More important than the science academy?”

  “And the school of art, the cathedral city, or the VR servers.”

  “You think highly of your low sport.” Silver continued scanning the area. Her neural processor continually attempted to contact Arty or settlement AI.

  “Maybe if you spent some time here you might begin to understand its importance.”

  “I’m not spending any more time here than is necessary.” Silver turned to Darklin. “How far away is Coris?”

  “Just a few meters, detective. Why are you so interested in capturing this one crim? Gov central must want him pretty badly.”

  “He is a terrorist. A dangerous criminal. He is a threat to every civilian.”

  “If he was blowing up food production facilities or the sun’s Dyson structures I might agree. But he destroyed a SV server. Why is that such a threat?”

  “If he can blow up anything at all then he is deviant and needs to be educated. For his good. For the good of all.”

  “Spoken like a well educated patriot.” Darklin stopped walking. “But SV is not freedom. We are all imprisoned by it.”

  “The innocent have nothing to fear from surveillance.” Silver squared up to Darklin.

  “The government has everything to fear from freedom.” Darklin pointed toward a narrow alley just ahead. “Your man is down there.”

  The SV shadow covered the area. There was also a strong mag field that caused Silver’s neural processor to glitch badly. She released a bloodhound nanodrone that failed instantly. Silver looked into the corridor. Her map glitched, flickering in and out of focus. She was in an entirely unmapped area.

  “I can try and flush him out myself if you prefer?” Darklin stood smiling.

  Silver activated her visor and set it for low light vision. She drew her blazer and walked into the gloom of the bare corridor. The modules were all shut up, abandoned or as yet unused. One further along the corridor was open. Silver stepped toward it. She brought her weapon up.

  “Coris,” she called out. “Come quietly and no one needs to get hurt.” She risked a look around the corner into the open module. Her visor showed her every dark corner. The module was empty. Silver heard the click of pistols being readied. She turned in time to see Darklin’s men spread across the end of the corridor, pistols raised.

  CHAPTER 4

  The flash and crackle of kinetic rounds being fired filled the corridor as Silver dived into the cover of the open module. The sound of each pistol shot id
entified the locations of her attackers. Silver darted out of cover, weapon ready. She pulled her blazer’s trigger. Nothing.

  Another crackle of pistol fire, rounds slamming into the module, flecks chipped off as the rounds hit. Darting back into cover, Silver hurriedly checked her weapon.

  The blazer’s diagnostics were inactive. Silver realized it was the mag field strength preventing her blazer from firing. More worryingly her suit was unresponsive. Silver tried again to activate her protective field. Nothing. She heard footsteps coming along the corridor toward her.

  She was trapped. Taken to this dead corner of the settlement. Darklin was going to answer for this. Only lifelong re-education in a secure facility would be enough. That would come, if she could only escape.

  The footsteps of Darklin’s men were close enough and loud enough for Silver to identify their positions and to seal their fate. She counted the men and marked their positions from the sounds of their footfalls. Three men, probably the three that had escorted her and Darklin. She heard the click of their pistols in sweaty palms. The nearest was close enough. She moved.

  A shoulder roll along the floor brought her to the feet of the first man. She reached up gripped the weapon. A sweeping kick along the floor took the man’s feet from under him. He landed hard on his back, his grip on the pistol lost. As the other two men aimed their pistols Silver rolled forward again and came up to her feet. She brought the handle of the pistol she’d taken from the first man down hard on the nose of the second man.

  A crack of bone and a cry of pain filled the dark corridor. The second man fell to his knees. Silver kicked the pistol upwards out of the hand of the fallen man and threw the pistol in her hand at the third man. The thrown pistol clattered into the one aimed at her by the third man. A pistol fired, the rounds tore through the air next to Silver’s ear. The pistol kicked from the second man’s hand had reached its zenith and was falling. Silver plucked it out of the air and threw it at the third man’s head. The pistol hit home knocking him backward.

  The first man was back on his feet. Silver heard his clumsy approach. She pivoted and delivered a high roundhouse kick. The blow landed hard on the man’s temple. He fell to the floor unconscious.

  Silver dashed to the nearest fallen pistol. She scooped it up on her way to the next. Skidding to a halt she aimed a pistol at each of the two remaining men. One still kneeling clutching his bloody nose, the other climbing to his feet with murder in his eye. The look soon mellowed as he saw Silver standing in the middle of the corridor, a pistol in each hand, both aimed with rock solid steadiness.

  “The way out,” she said.

  The man on his knees looked over his shoulder to the far end of the corridor. The man on his feet stepped aside. Silver looked to the end, shadows flicked across the ground, shadows cast by more men hidden from sight.

  She was trapped. She motioned with one of the pistols to the man on his knees. “Get up,” she said. “Stand,” she added with another flick of the pistol. And then she told both men to turn around.

  Maybe, she hoped, the men waiting at the far end would not shoot down the two men. Maybe, Silver thought, they were all expendable. Darklin had gone to some trouble to bring her to this area where she was so hidden from the entire system by the mag field and SV shadow.

  In an instant the corridor filled with noise and light. Silver was knocked forward as the end of the corridor disintegrated in a sudden blast. Silver realized that she was at the edge of the settlement. With the wall destroyed wind and snow blew in bringing the painful cold of night. Silver backed toward the opening. The roar of the wind did nothing to hide the distinctive sound of Razor hovering just outside.

  Silver backed toward the opening, pistols raised. “Tell your boss,” she shouted over the noise, “that I’ll be back for him soon.” Turning and running toward the opening she felt the cold cut through her suit. As she jumped through the outer wall of the settlement into the cold, she sensed her neural processor come back online and the SV shadow give way to full connectivity.

  Silver powered her suit and leapt up to Razor, its plasma jets roaring in the swirling snow. The gravity distortion let her leap onto the upper hull of Razor.

  “Opening the upper hatch,” Arty said.

  “Get us out of here,” Silver said as the outer hatch closed behind her. She was near-crippled by the cold and set her suit to increase temperature. A few moments more and she would have been incapacitated by it. A few moments more than that and she would have been dead. She lay on the deck and shivered.

  “I became concerned when I lost you from SV coverage,” Arty said. “I’ve been tracking you as best I could. I located your life signs and then the discharge of kinetic rounds. I felt an emergency egress was appropriate.”

  “Thanks, Art.” Silver said through chattering teeth. “I lost Coris.”

  “He was transported to a Lycon Cruiser in orbit seventy three minutes ago. That craft accelerated away shortly after.”

  “Follow it,” Silver said as the warm began to overcome the cold.

  “We are already underway.”

  Silver released a synthetic painkiller from a bio implant. She felt the relief and climbed to her feet. “Any idea where he might be heading?”

  “He is heading back into the system. He could be heading to Pepper. There are also several craft and asteroid settlements along his flight path. He could be heading to any of them.

  “Just keep up with him,” Silver said.

  “I can do better than that,” Arty said. “We will have caught him before he can reach any settlement where he could hope to hide.”

  Silver staggered into the flight deck. She pulled her suit open at the neck as she finally felt the warmth take effect.

  “Incoming message,” Arty said. The hologram of Darklin appeared on the holostage.

  “Darklin,” Silver said, settling into her chair. “Consider yourself under arrest. I will be returning for you very soon.”

  “We can’t always pick sides, detective.” Darklin shrugged. “I’m glad you got away.”

  “You won’t be so glad when I come back for you.”

  Darklin shrugged again. “Guess not. But just so you know there are no hard feelings let me give you this parting gift.”

  “Receiving transmission,” Arty said.

  “I hope that’s your confession, Darklin,” Silver said. “I might go easy on you if you come clean.”

  Silver noticed Razors acceleration on the flight data display drop to zero. The attitude display showed Razor was beginning to tumble as it continued on its way, speed constant, heading fixed, attitude control gone. Razor was unpowered and tumbling toward the system’s white sun.

  “Arty, what has he done?” Silver shifted uneasily in her chair. She pulled the suit closed. At least her suit was still powered.

  “Darklin’s hologram smiled up at Silver. “I think your AI has found my little gift. Take care.” Darklin gave Silver a wink as his hologram vanished.

  “I have discovered an explosive device attached to Razor,” Arty said. “It is set to detonate once Razor was underway. I powered down all systems. It is the only way to prevent detonation.”

  “How did that get there?”

  “It was placed there by a lone individual while Razor was crippled and under repair.”

  “Coris,” Silver said, gripping the arm of her seat tight.

  “Most likely.”

  “How is Darklin involved in all this?” Silver said to herself.

  “Maybe he’s not,” Arty said. “Darklin let us know about the bomb on Razor. He sent a cluster of SV data in that last transmission. It was buried in the data transfer, his parting gift.”

  Silver climbed out of her chair and floated across the flight deck. “Can you deactivate it and get us back underway?”

  “No,” Arty said. “The device is on the outer hull. You will have to remove it manually.”

  “Where’s Coris?” Silver said as she floated toward the airlo
ck.

  “We have lost him. I cannot track him. I had to power down all systems. We’ll find him soon enough, though.”

  “Damn right we will.” Silver said and pulled the airlock closed. “Can you direct me to this explosive?”

  “Uploading location to your neural processor now.”

  The outer hatch opened and Silver closed her eyes as the star field flashed across her view. Razor was tumbling and the view was a dizzying kaleidoscope of spinning stars. She looked down to the hull of Razor and picked her way along toward the device. With every minute Coris was slipping further away. She didn’t care what he’d done, or hadn’t done anymore. She had never been given the run around by any criminal and she was getting pissed. She was going to take Coris down and nothing was going to get in her way.

  CHAPTER 5

  Razor was a police issue Cruiser craft. They were constructed at a Gov construction plant in the asteroid belt between Frost and Titan. The police cruisers were designed for speed, maneuverability, durability and for comfort of the onboard detective. Silver had customized Razor little by little as she and Arty had learned more about its capabilities. She knew the ship inside and out and had crawled over every inch of the hull. She had explored every system behind every panel. Much was automated by Razor itself. Arty was responsible for systems operations. Silver was the director, the captain. She directed Razor and Arty to act according to her instructions. She did little active operation but still she needed to understand every part of the craft.

  Software and AI were vital but Silver was not a person happy to take an armchair ride. Without detailed knowledge of the ship and its systems she left herself vulnerable, and Silver did everything in her power to ensure she was never vulnerable.

  Arty sent a marker to Silver’s visor showing her where the device had been planted. It was hidden beneath the outer composite shell on the underside of Razor, in the forward starboard quarter.

  “The person that placed the device knew we were in an SV shadow,” Arty said as Silver approached the area. “If it wasn’t for Darklin I would not have known it was there. We’d be a rapidly expanding debris field if it wasn’t for him.”