The Belt: The Complete Trilogy Read online

  Scott kept these thoughts to himself as he and the others set about redistributing mass around the ring. The missing section had set up an imbalance that, if left uncorrected, would put an unnecessary strain on the central bearing. If the torus was spun up too fast, the ship could literally shake itself to pieces. So, it was almost two hours before the torus was finally tested, slowly at first, then with increasing speed, at the same time making sure all stress indicators remained comfortably within nominal tolerances.

  Scott sat in the commander's chair on the bridge for some time, saying nothing, lost in thought. He was broken out of his musing by a mug of coffee and a hot bowl of rehydrated chili thrust in his direction by Rick. "Here you go, buddy."

  Scott reached out and gratefully took the offerings. "Thanks." The smell was already sending signals to his brain, reminding him that he was ravenously hungry. As he dug in, he could hear the rest of the crew also chowing down. Rick and Steph had taken it upon themselves to bring a supply of food and drink up to the bridge. Usually this was against protocol, all that hot liquid in proximity to delicate electronics. But nobody cared about that now; there was just a furious period of slurping and munching going on. It was the first time in nearly two years that the crew had eaten together. Scott sat forward and concentrated on getting the food into him as fast as humanly possible.

  "So, what now?" Cyrus wiped his mouth with the back of his hand.

  "Wait and see what HQ wants us to do. They've got the report on the whole incident, so..." Scott shrugged his shoulders.

  "They'll want us back. The mission is over now. Our ship is busted up, and we've burned too much fuel to be able to complete the survey," said Miranda.

  "Yeah, and they're going to be pissed that we lost the quantum device."

  Scott put his empty bowl down on the floor. "For sure. But let's face it: there's a lot we don't know, and a lot that HQ is not telling us. I mean, who were those guys? And what the hell is that device? Why is it so valuable? Like, what the heck is going on?"

  Nobody answered. Scott was on his feet now. "We've been taken for a ride here. That ship knew where we were, knew what we were carrying, and they sure as hell knew every part of this ship. I mean, how did they know to target a disused sector of the torus? Eh? Anyone?" He turned to face the crew, hands extended. "Someone is screwing with us. Someone in HQ got the word out, maybe even decided they would steal it for themselves."

  "We don't know that, Scott." Steph was also on her feet now.

  "That's just being paranoid," said Miranda.

  But there was no stopping Scott; he was on a roll and he was going to keep going until he was finished. He waved one arm at the ceiling and looked up. "Even our great and all-knowing QI is hiding things from us. I can feel it in my bones. Isn't that right, Aria?"

  "I assure you, Commander, I have been trying to acquire as much information as I can concerning the nature and purpose of this enigmatic device."

  "And?" said Scott.

  Aria was afraid of this very question. It had wanted to keep some information to itself and not burden Scott. It had ascertained the information was of no great value and would only cause the commander more stress. But now that it had been asked a direct question, Aria had no option but to spit it out. "And, well... there is one minor piece of additional information I managed to pick up, but it's not very useful."

  "Go on, let's hear it."

  "Very well then, if you insist. My investigations revealed that the derelict craft had been chartered to transport scientific equipment from Earth to Europa for safekeeping by the QI known as Solomon. The corporation that chartered the ship was... Dyrell Labs."

  Scott froze, and a look of surprised shock exploded across his face. "Dyrell?" he finally managed to say after a few stunned seconds.

  "I'm afraid so, Commander."

  "Who are they? Do you know them?" Cyrus directed his question to Scott, who was now moving slowly back to his seat.

  "Leave it, Cyrus. It doesn't matter." Miranda was shaking her head at the chief engineer.

  "Why, what's going on?" Steph was not letting go.

  Rick moved a step closer to Scott and gave him a conspiratorial look, then turned back to the others. "Forget it. Aria's right: it doesn't help us."

  Both Cyrus and Steph now bore similar quizzical looks. It was clear to them that everybody knew something they didn't. Scott was slumped in his seat, elbow on the armrest, his head supported by a closed fist. He sat up and waved a hand at Rick. "It's okay. What the heck, they may as well hear it. I don't mind. I'm over it now." He leaned forward, placed his elbows on his knees, and clasped his hands together.

  "My father worked for Dyrell way back, a long time ago now." He directed his narration to Cyrus and Steph as the others, including Aria, already knew the full story. "He was a physicist working in the field of quantum research. Dyrell was trying to develop new technologies based on quantum behavior. Anyway, my father began to get frustrated with the repressive culture, so he took a leap of faith, left the corporation, and started his own independent research lab.

  "It was a tough time for all of us. I didn't see much of him during that period. He was always away, always working. It went on like that for a few years, but eventually he made a significant breakthrough and established some very lucrative patents on the back of it. He became quite wealthy; it seemed like his big gamble had paid off. That was until Dyrell Labs decided to sue his ass." Scott paused for a moment as he took a sip of coffee. He clasped the mug between his hands and stared at it for a second before continuing with his story.

  "They claimed he developed these ideas while still working at Dyrell, so the patents were rightfully theirs. Not only that, but they also sued for compensation, lost revenue, the full nine yards. Of course, it was complete bullshit. But it didn't matter—they had the financial muscle to try it on." Scott sighed and sat back.

  "My father fought them with everything he had, but in the end, he lost everything: the patents, the business, and all his money. We were effectively left destitute. About three months after the final round of court battles, he took a long walk off a short pier. We found his car parked close to the bay and his body washed up on the beach a day later."

  "Jeez, Scott. I never knew. I'm really sorry to hear all that," said Cyrus.

  "That must have been a terrible time for you," said Steph.

  Scott waved a dismissive hand. "Yeah, it was. But I learned to move on—sort of." He sat up and leaned in again. "You see, my name was now toxic. I had to drop out of college and no one would give me a second look. No one wanted to be associated with the McNabb name. In the end, I decided to leave Earth and head out to the Belt. I took a job working on freighters, hauling ore from one rock to another. I worked my way up to commander and then... well, let's just say certain people decided that I was now responsible for some of my father's legal debts."

  "That's sick. Out here?" said Cyrus.

  "Is that true? I never thought they could do that." Miranda was visibly shocked. Scott was now revealing more of the story than any of them knew.

  "Who knows if it's legal? Dyrell doesn't care. They hired some low-life collection agency, and they have... let's just say, a more personal approach to getting their money back."

  "So that's why you're here. You're running away." Miranda had a knack for never missing an opportunity to stick the knife in.

  "That's not very fair." Steph was quick to call her out.

  "It's okay. Miranda's right." Scott waved a hand again. "Rick knew of my trouble and gave me a heads-up on this gig. Five years out in the Belt, far away from anyone, sounded like a good idea at the time. So, I signed up and, well... here I am."

  No one spoke for a beat as they all digested Scott's story. Finally, Steph broke the silence. "So, what about your mother and the rest of your family? Are they being chased down too?"

  Scott slowly shook his head as he lowered his gaze to the floor. "They're all dead. Died when the west coast got nuked, back a
t the beginning of the rim war."

  "Jeez, Scott. You seem to have nothing but bad luck." Cyrus was getting emotional.

  "Yeah. The irony of it all, if you could call it that, is that Dyrell's main development lab also got vaporized in that first strike. All their research facilities, their QI, everything was snuffed out. I would laugh if it weren't so tragic. You see, in a way it was all for nothing: the legal cases, the destruction of my father, the patents. In the end, it all went up in a mushroom cloud—except for the alleged debt. They still came after me for that."

  The crew receded into their collective thoughts, almost like they were afraid to ask any more of Scott in case the story would plumb new depths of misfortune and tragedy. Instead, they all sat together in silence. It was a moment of camaraderie that Scott had not experienced before. For all the crap he'd been through, there was comfort in this moment. He reckoned they had always viewed him as a bit of a slacker with a total disregard for authority or command. But now, at least, they knew the reason why.

  After a while, Miranda stood up and started to move around. "So, if the derelict ship was chartered by Dyrell Labs, then it stands to reason that the quantum device is also theirs."

  "Yes," answered Aria, "it was transported from Earth shortly before the rim war started, from their main research facility on the west coast."

  "So, they reckoned something was going to happen, and started moving the silverware into the bunker," said Rick.

  "In a sense. But, the threat of war was very high at the time. Everybody was on the move," said Aria.

  "Hey, wouldn't it be even more ironic, Scott, if that device turned out to be something developed by your father?" said Cyrus.

  Scott gave a kind of half laugh, half snort. "Ha... yeah, well, it doesn't matter now anyway. It's gone. Long gone."

  "Bastards." Miranda swiveled around to the others, waving her arm in the general direction of the main screen where they’d all witnessed the assailants take off with the device. "Legally that cargo is ours. Under the Outer Space Treaty, we have claimed salvage. They can't simply take it and expect to get away with it."

  "Well they can, and they have." Scott stood up. "We're irrelevant. We're the little guys. Nobody is going to give a shit about us—or our legal claims. Just forget it. It’s over. It’s gone, and there’s no way to get it back even if we wanted to. So just face up to the reality, Miranda. It’s a million miles away by now and could be anywhere, and there is absolutely no way we could ever track them down.”

  Again, there was a moment's silence as the truth of Scott's outburst began to sink in.

  "Eh... that's not exactly true." All eyes turned toward the chief engineer.

  "What do you mean, not exactly true?" said Scott.

  "Because I hid a locator beacon inside the keypad and activated it before we shoved it out the airlock."

  "How the hell did you get time to do all that?" said Miranda.

  "I did it a while back. I thought it might be a good idea to put a tracker on it, you know, in case something happened and we needed to find it again."

  Miranda moved over and gave him a big hug. "Cyrus, you're a goddamn genius."

  "Don't get too excited—it doesn't have a very long range. We need to be within ten kilometers, straight line, to pick it up again."

  "Aria, is it possible for you to extrapolate probable destinations for the attackers' vessel based on the direction it took?" said Miranda.

  "It's possible, but with little accuracy, and the range of potential destinations would be significant."

  "Whoa, just wait a pair of moments." Scott was up on his feet again, gesticulating at Miranda. "This is nuts. Think about what you're saying."

  The crew all stopped for a moment and began to exchange conspiratorial looks.

  "Yeah, what are we saying?" said Rick.

  "We go after them. We get it back," said Miranda.

  "Okay, well, let's think about that for a moment, shall we?" Scott turned around so he could take in the faces of the crew. "Number one," he extended an index finger, "we may have a tracking beacon on it, but from what you're saying, Cyrus, we would need to be sitting virtually on top of it to get a blip. Secondly, we might know where they're headed, but as Aria pointed out, these... pirates could be anywhere. It would be like looking for a diamond in a desert." He extended a third finger. "Next, even if with some gargantuan stretch of the imagination we do manage to find them, we're dealing with some serious dudes here. They put a very large hole in our ship just because they got impatient. And lastly, we would be doing this in direct violation of orders from HQ who, presumably, will now instruct us to return to Ceres. At best, we would lose our bonus. At worst, assuming we don't all get killed, we would forfeit all our pay and become criminals since we would technically be stealing their spaceship."

  This sobered them all up. When the reality of what they were contemplating was laid out before them, they began to realize how much of a fool's errand it was.

  "Don't you want to get it back? I mean, think of the money," said Miranda.

  "Yeah, I sure as hell could do with it," said Rick.

  Scott shook his head. "If I thought there was a reasonable possibility of achieving that, I could be persuaded. But this is crazy."

  "I'm with Scott on this. We've too much to lose with little chance of success," said Steph.

  "Come on, don't you see? This is still ours—all we have to do is get it back. Are you all just going to throw away the opportunity to be... free of worry for the rest of your lives?" Miranda was not letting go.

  "I say we should go for it. What the heck," said Cyrus.

  "You can't keep running away, Scott. Sometimes you have to stand up and fight for what's yours." There was a hint of frustration in the flight officer's voice.

  Scott spun around to face Miranda. "Like my father, eh? He fought the good fight, and look where it got him. A world full of debt and a body full of seawater."

  "I... I didn't mean it that way. I meant... seize the opportunity."

  "Yeah, you did." Scott raised his hands in the air in exasperation. "You all think you know me, you all think I'm just some slacker running away from everything, looking for the easy way out. Well screw it, maybe I am. But I'm still alive, and my family is dead." He turned to face Miranda again and pointed a finger at her. "You don't know me. You don't know anything about me. If you want the real truth of how I feel, well, the way I see it is Dyrell owes me big time, to the point where I want to crush them, to annihilate all trace of them from the system. So, for me, it wouldn't be about the money anymore. It would simply be about extracting revenge." He paused to look at them all. "Do you really want to be part of that?"

  No one answered.

  "But you're right about one thing." Scott's voice was softer now. "I have been running away, but not from what you think. I've been running from myself, from fear of what I would do if I chose to take my revenge. So maybe you're right, Miranda. Maybe it's time for me to stop running. But then again, I need to ask myself: do I really want to drag all my friends into this?" He opened his arms out to them as he said it.

  The crew stood mute in the face of this revelation. The dark underbelly of their commander had been glimpsed, a veil pulled back to display the hidden malice bubbling beneath. No one knew quite how to react.

  In the end, it was Aria who spoke. "If I may, Commander, I have plotted some vector probabilities for the departing craft and have established three possible destinations. Would you like to see them?"

  There was a silence as the face-off between Scott and the crew continued. Finally, the commander broke off. "Okay, what the heck. Put it up on the holo-table."

  With that, a 3D rendering of the solar system radiated out, showing the central planets including orbits and current positions. It extended as far as Earth on one side with Jupiter on the other. It also displayed a detailed rendering of the vast debris field between Mars and Jupiter known as the asteroid belt.

  "This was our position w
hen the attack occurred," said Aria. "I have tracked the departure trajectory of the pirate vessel as far as our scanners allow. Bear in mind that in the general scheme of things, this is not very far, so what you see here is a best guess. Nevertheless, assuming they remain on that trajectory and do not deviate, then this will be their track through the solar system."

  The projection started to move, scribing a thin line depicting the path of the departing craft as it traveled through the central band of the Belt. "According to my calculations, they will exit the Belt at this point and traverse open space to reenter the Belt here." The solar system map played out Aria's words.

  "From this, it looks like they are heading for Ceres." Cyrus tapped a few icons on the holo-table to zoom in on the dwarf planet.

  "Not necessarily," said Aria. "It is a possibility, but not the only one. This same trajectory will bring them close to Vesta and its satellite populations centers. However, it is possible that they may be heading here." The animation rewound until the craft looked to be back in open space, then it zoomed in and a tiny asteroid began to render itself in close proximity to the track of the spacecraft.

  "Neo City," said Scott. "Now, why does that not surprise me?" He turned to the crew as he pointed at the dot hovering in space. "I would put money on this being where they're going. Where better in the Belt to offload an illegal cargo than this place?"

  "So, what are we saying, then?" said Rick.

  "I say we should pay it a visit." Miranda looked from one to the other for confirmation.

  "How? We're probably going straight back to Ceres," said Cyrus.

  There was a moment before Scott realized they were all looking at him.

  "Well... we'll pass close by Neo City on the way. And since our ship is all beat up, it wouldn't surprise anyone if it developed some technical problem that needed to be looked at. And if that problem only came to our attention while we were close to the asteroid..." Scott gave a shrug, "then the sensible option would be to stop off there and get it checked out."