Free Solaris Rising 1.5 by Ian Whates Page B

with whom she’d had a brief affair. She remembered his Mephistophelean beard; his long hair tied back in a dark ponytail; his Stetson hat and lizardskin coat. The way his skin smelled of cologne and old leather.
    On a whim, she said, “Scan the port for the Bobcat ’s transponder.”
    > ALREADY LOCATED. THE BOBCAT IS CURRENTLY FLOATING IN THE PARKING ZONE OFF THE CONTINENT’S WESTERN COAST. DO YOU WANT TO MAKE CONTACT?
    Kat settled back in her couch. She drummed on the instrument console with the tungsten fingers of her prosthetic hand.
    “Just see if he’s on board.”
    The Ameline opened a comms channel. Through her neural link, Kat felt it squirt a high-density info burst at the other ship. The reply—a similarly compressed screech of data—came a couple of seconds later, delayed by distance.
    > HE’S NOT THERE AT THE MOMENT.
    “Can the ship patch us through to his implant?”
    > I’M AFRAID NOT.
    “Any mention of him on the Grid?”
    The Ameline accessed the planetary communications net and ran a quick search.
    > HE’S IN TROUBLE.
    Kat rolled her eyes. Of course... “With the law?”
    > THERE’S A PRICE ON HIS HEAD.
    “Can you locate him?”
    > IT SEEMS HE’S BEEN TAKEN CAPTIVE BY ONE OF THE LOCAL GANGSTERS, A MAN NAMED EARL VILCA.
    “Show me.”
    A map unfolded before her eyes: a three-dimensional aerial view of one of the canyons, patched together by the ship from direct observation, public records and intercepted satellite observation. A yellow tag marked Jones’s last known location, on the canyon floor.
    > THE BOBCAT WAS ABLE TO TRACK HIM THIS FAR, THEN HE VANISHED. EITHER HE’S DEAD, OR HE’S BEING HELD SOMEWHERE WITH COMMS SCREENING.
    A scarlet circle appeared on the map, near the upper lip of the canyon wall, at the top of the vertical favela.
    > THIS IS VILCA’S COMPOUND. IF HE’S STILL ALIVE, CHANCES ARE THAT’S WHERE THEY’RE HOLDING HIM.
    “Can I speak to Vilca?”
    > I’LL SEE IF I CAN—
    The ship’s voice cut off. Kat sat forward. “What is it?”
    > INCOMING.
    The map of the canyons vanished, to be replaced by a stylised strategic overview of the planetary system. Nuevo Cordoba floated in the centre. Green tags picked out each of the twenty-four rescue freighters. Off to the left, coming in above the plane of the planet’s equator, a flashing red circle highlighted an unidentified ship.
    > IT JUST JUMPED IN. COURSE EXTRAPOLATION MARKS ITS POINT OF ORIGIN AS STRAULI.
    Kat’s heart seemed to squirm in her chest. These days, every unidentified ship was a potential threat.
    “Is it infected?”
    > ALMOST CERTAINLY.
    The intruder seemed to be heading straight for the planet, ignoring the scattering freighters. Kat disconnected her neural implant from the ship’s sensorium and reeled her perceptions back into the confines of her skull.
    “Are we close enough to intercept and engage?”
    > AYE.
    She flexed the fingers of her artificial hand. The joints buzzed like mosquitoes.
    “Okay,” she said. “Let’s do it.”
     
     
    U NDER FULL ACCELERATION , it took the Ameline an hour and a half to get close enough to fire on the unidentified ship. Throughout that time, Kat remained in place on the little ship’s bridge. Housing only two crash couches, the room was too small for her to pace nervously—more of a large cockpit than a ship’s bridge in the accepted sense. Instead, she sat impatiently watching their progress via the interactive touch screens on the forward wall.
    When they were almost within range, she activated her implant and joined her mind once more to the Ameline ’s heightened senses. When hooked in to the ship like this, she could feel the thrust as a tingle in her feet; the power of the engines as a growl in her chest and stomach. Her nostrils were full of the cold, coppery smell of the vacuum. The heat of the local sun warmed her. The lights of distant stars pinpricked her cheeks.
    She opened a line to the weapon pod slung beneath the Ameline ’s