By William S. Frisbee Jr.

Netrunning was never my thing. Sure I had been trained by the best the military had to offer and I did well, but I still never liked it. Getting shot and having your brain fried by Opfor ice were two different things. But then death is still death I suppose.

The Rentak ice, Intrusion Countermeasure, ICe for short, just stood solemnly by the datapath to the next node. I didn’t even want to bounce anything stronger than a low grade indentify prog at it to find out what kind of ice it was. Sometimes ice could get touchy. It’s icon was that of a twentieth century soldier in a green dress uniform with some ancient weapon in its hands. It was relatively low resolution which meant it probably wasn’t anything real serious because the designer didn’t assign it a high priority. Then again you never knew. I was going to have to take it out anyways if I wanted to get what I wanted. Since it was civilian ice I fired up my sucker program. I threw it a lollipop which it caught and put in it’s mouth. Too easy. It was currently caught in an indentification loop. It was given a passcode then the passcode was cancelled and another one given before it could check it’s records. I fired up my bypass utility and I was passed the busy program. I followed the data path toward Rentak shipping, passing a couple other ‘innocents’ who were either constructs or other jackers. It didn’t bother me and I didn’t look out of place as a middle aged exec. Of course that was just the icon I was using. Microseconds later I was in the Rentak shipping information node. Around me others were going about their business and everyone ignored everyone else. I slid up to a data port and began downloading ship departures, routes, cargo and crew roster manifests. Any and everything I could get my hands on.

While I was patiently downloading all those files somebody bounced an indentify-verify prog off me which was bad news. I spun around cancelling my download, to see a security jacker. Talk about bad, dumb luck! I knew his check would turn up negative, I was an intruder after all. I wondered briefly if this was a random check or I had tripped something but I didn’t spend a lot of time wondering about it though.

I swore and fired up my attack utilities. Now I would have to fight my way out and my icon changed to that of a manlike cat dressed from the neck down like a ninja. The black knight saw my icon change and knew I was had gone into combat mode so he went for his sword at the same time I fired off my thunderbolt. The Knight dodged and swung at me which I dodged. Everything appeared icon driven but it wasn’t when it came down to it. Our attack programs merely attacked the others persona program, the attack was dodged by changing the name, size or type of the program depending on your defense routines. Of course that couldn’t last long but I had an ace up my sleeve, a state of the art, military grade, combat infiltration computer was backing me up. My next attack didn’t miss and the jacker was dumped from the net. I could have killed him with a biofeedback loop, one of the attack options but I’m not the bloodthirsty type unless required by my mission specifications and in this case it wasn’t.

Ice, Intrusion Countermeasures, had been activated by the security jacker getting dumped so I intitiated my recall program and dropped off a frag virus before I zipped down my data stream toward where my meat body was. The frag virus began scrambling files and replicating itself, a real messy program made by one of the best. In the net it looked like a waterpainting someone splashed with water. The closer to the frag virus you got the blurrier things became. Walls and other jackers disolved into color, the jackers would get dumped harmlessly, everything else got scrambled. It wouldn’t do much damage to the files since copies were kept off line but any ice showing up in that node would be in trouble. The virus might give me a few seconds I hoped.

But suddenly my way was blocked by a monstrous robotic construct that barely looked humanoid. It shimmered in the net and had a very high resolution. My identify prog classified it as Black Ice - the fatal kind. I initiated my ice attack program which appeared as several shuriken. It lost resolution which meant it lost system integrity but it wasn’t out of the fight and I swore. It’s arms came up and it began firing bolts of green lightning that flashed through my body making me scream, that’s when my ace in the hole came into play. If someone had been watching me I would have split into three forms, two of which became ninja warriors that pounced on the black ice with thier swords swinging. The intrusion computer was a special type of defender. If I were attacked or suffered persona damage it automatically came on line annalyzed the attack parameters of my enemy and then counter attacking and you can’t fry an intrusion computer’s brain either. The construct didn’t stand a chance against my anti-ice constructs and I slipped out of the Rentak computer system and out into Bast Net. There were tracers following me so I dropped another frag virus. Which wasn’t a nice thing to do in a public net but I didn’t care too much about that, it was my life on the line and more ice on my tail. Microseconds later I jacked out. An intrusion computer was a top secret state of the art computer that most jackers didn’t even know about. Most nations had banned the tech but since I no longer belonged to a nation it didn’t bother me.

I had to move fast because I had no doubt the tracers were at least partially effective. I was ready for that though and already I was wearing my disguise. Pretending I wasn’t in such a hurry I disconnected from the vidcom terminal and put away all the wires and my cyberconnects. My bags were ready to go and I was out the door in less than twenty seconds. It was one of those spaceport third rate hotels and since I had already paid for the room in cash, the clerk, a bored teenager, didn’t even look up when the fat man shambled out of their lobby.

I shambled onto the metromover and five stops later got off at the major station and headed for the bathroom. In the stall I enabled my surviellance jammer and I lost the cheek, gut and butt pads, peeled off the fake skin that had made me look like I still hadn’t lost my baby fat and I put on the smelly beard. Everything in my bag was ready to go as I did a quick change going from a young fat man with an innocent face to a grizzled asteroid miner. I pulled out another bag, unrolled it and put my previous bag into it becoming an entirely different person. I stepped out of the stall and limped out the door cursing the price of spare antigrav modules.

This spy stuff annoyed me but I was wanted on nearly every civilized planet for almost every crime in the book. A few I was even responsible for, but that was only a matter of perception. One man’s terrorist is another mans freedom fighter.

I pondered that as I watched station security rush by. Every terrorist could justify his actions to himself, it was society that condemned him though. I tried to shrug it off, I was just bothered by releasing the frag virus in the public net. I always did have a guilty concience. I wondered briefly if the security guards were after me or someone else as they sped down the corridor pushing aside several people that weren’t fast enough. I stopped to watch and curse the security personel like everyone else, not too loud, not too quiet, just one of the crowd.

When they were out of site I limped back to a metromover and boarded another train to the space docks. Two stops down a pair of comptent looking security goons, Rentak corporation no less, got on the train and began looking around a picture of the fat man I had been on their vidcoms.

My heart beat a little faster as they came near me. Kind of stupid really, after all I was completely different in appearance but it was me they were looking for. Obviously I had triggered a station wide hunt. Which really ruined my day. If it hadn’t been for that damn security jacker. I wondered briefly who he had been. Probably some stuck up asshole who was more than comfy in his little corporate position, a fat cat while billions of others, victims of Rentak, starved or died from curable deseases. Or the jacker was probably a blind puppet, a brainwashed fool who was addicted to the subliminals and drugs the corporation used with impunity on it’s employees.

I watched with feigned disinterest as my previous face appeared on a nearby advertisement board promising a reward for information leading to my arrest. I looked at the price they were offering and swore to myself. Effecient bastards and they really wanted me bad. Twenty thousand credits. A real serious penny, that’s how much most low income people made in a year. I guess I really screwed up their computer system. If the butterfly’s in my stomach hadn’t been dogfighting with combat aircraft I probably would have laughed. But this was severely uncool since I was on my own, no backup, no friends.

An hour after my botched netrun I was sitting in a restaurant in plain view watching people move around. I had changed disguise twice more and now I appeared to be a youngish, lethal, mercenary, my favorite role actually. My fatman’s face was still appearing in ads so I began to seriously doubt their ability to track me down. They still hadn’t discovered the grizzled miner persona yet. I idly listened to a pair of techno types that looked like punk rockers at the next table talk about how the station net was down because of some virus a terrorist had released. My concience whacked me again as I thought of all the innocent people who’s lives I had interefered with. Another part of me was kind of proud that Tanaka’s virus had done so well, she would be happy at least.

The next day they had discovered my miner persona but I knew that was where they would lose it. Too many people thinking they had seen me would be calling in trying to get the reward money, too many leads, too many dead ends. The station network was back up and running though which made me feel a little bit better. I felt like it was time to slip back into the net and see how things were. This time I used a faded vidcom booth near a main thoroughfare and I used my mercenary persona this time as I jacked in. Apparently everything was operational and I didn’t notice any degradation from the frag virus. Rentak however was another story. I went into the Rentak computer under the pretense of looking for a job, mercenary contracts. Everything was basic glittering blue walls, blue floors, black node connections, ect. Like they rebooted it without any frills. More ice was evident but I was on more or less legitimate business. I was scanning the job database seeing if there was anything interesting when I got hit again by a identify prog. Nothing real serious, you can’t intrude in a public access area. Then I saw it was the black knight and my blood froze. Cooincidence?

"Can I speak with you for a moment?" the knight said in a sexless digitized voice.

"Sure," I said with a shrug. My real body was probably in a cold sweat right now. I had joined the military not the spy corps and I wasn’t a great lier, I was just glad my persona didn’t imitate my emotions.

We raised a barrier between us and the world around us. Simple enough and safe enough for me. Around us others went about their business unconcerned.

"I need your help," the Knight said.

"How’s that?"

"I know your the one that penetrated our computer yesterday-"

I launced an attack and triggered my recall utility before he could finish. There was no doubt in my mind he was trying to stall while security forces closed down on my body or black ice was summoned. As I was being yanked out of the Rentak computer I saw the Knight stagger under the attack but he didn’t go down. I swore promising myself next time I would use lethal methods. I dropped another frag virus and a zonk virus behind me to throw off the tracers. I was kind of surprised that there didn’t appear to be any pursuit but then again they could already have a platoon at the doorway to the vidcom booth.

Just as suddenly I was back home, in my body. I opened my eyes and reached into my coat for my beamer hoping I wasn’t too late. As I looked at the rundown vidcom booth I exhaled and relaxed my body preparing for combat. Damned if those brainwiping, child killing scum would get their hands on me!

When I threw open the door I expected to be shot down but there was nobody waiting for me. A couple of poorly dressed people walked by but nobody even glanced at me. I ran through the trash strewn corridors without seeing a single security officer, which was good because I would have shot them instantly. Two blocks later I still hadn’t seen any red uniforms so I changed disguises to an executive type. I loosened my tie and collar and spashed some liqour on myself and took a good belt of it. I would imitate some exec coming back from some party in the grey sector. Hopefully.

The spy business was not my business I knew, but we all have to adapt and overcome I guess. As I staggered away I kept going over in my head what I had done, where had I gone wrong and allowed the opfor jacker to detect me. Where did I fail?

I’m not saying I’m good at the spy business, it wasn’t my chosen proffesion. But what do honorable soldiers do when some megacorporation wipes out their government because the government was interfering with their profits and employee policies? I’m sorry but I don’t approve of slavery which is what a Rentak employee contract amounts to. Niether did the Republic and the Republic did something about it. It all started twenty years ago when the Draconian Republic shut down, through force of arms, several corporate space station factories inside Republic space, Rentak being one of them. The employees that were living in miniturized, filthy, out dated cubicles worked in areas that were unsafe at best, maintenance often being costly. Of course the more valuble skills you had meant the better the conditions, training after all did cost money. If you were a simple unskilled migrant worker you were screwed. The megacorporations also did what it could to make sure you didn’t fulfill your contract obligations or were so in debt you couldn’t afford passage off the station. It saved the company money and resources all around.

After several incidents that resulted in numerous fatalities, one accident depressurized a section housing two thousand citizens forcing the Republic to step in. Rentak, by far the biggest corporation, argued that thier soveriegn space was being violated and fought back. The Republic argued Rentak was not a recognized nation and they hadn’t been granted soveriegn status. Without any choice in the matter, except backing down, the Republic sent in the troops and pacified those that opposed them and killing several Rentak executives.

Rentak was pissed. Rentak was also a very big corporation with extensive assets and a badly mauled ego compliments of the Republic and for years they planned.

Rentak, Datapak, Marstech, Osirus and several other major corps came together and formed the Economic Exchange. They became a new government. Together they could bring down any government that opposed them and Rentak had the permanent post of Board Director. They were not interested in ruling or empire building because local governments were more expensive and someone was needed to buy their products. They needed someone to push around.

Ten years later the Christian Unity invaded releasing biological warfare agents on unprotected `heathen sinners’ of the Draconian Republic. Meanwhile assassins struck against strategic personnel and a nucleur device was detonated at the capitol during congress. It all happened almost simultaneously, the timing for everything was superb. Then while confusion reigned CU warships supported by hordes of mercenaries invaded. Everything was too well planned for the Republic to have a chance and we didn’t. Our officer corps was decimated, patrol ships were ambushed and destroyed, our leaders were reduced to radioactive particles and our people were forced to isolate themselves in an attempt to escape contamination. We didn’t find out until later that it had been Rentak that had masterminded everything. Rentak had financed the mercenaries and provided military intelligence for the CU fanatics. Billions died, including my entire family. I only survived because I was in the military doing special training in an isolated location.

I was a career military man before Rentak wiped out the military I was part of. That kind of left things a little difficult. Rentak was extremely thorough and I and the rest of my unit were branded criminals by Rentak. We were severely screwed, hunted by bounty hunters everywhere and there was nowhere for us to go. They really didn’t leave us much choice so we disappeared into deep space in a cruiser we had escaped on and entered cold sleep for seven years.

Since we had come out of cold sleep the contracts on our lives had been cancelled and Rentak had all but forgotten about us. But for us the past was yesterday and we wanted blood. We had watched the vids of people dying on Republic worlds, we had seen our mothers, fathers, brothers, sisters, wives, lovers and children die. We had seen the CU lists posted before we went into cold sleep. I know everyone I knew was on it. Everyone. It was said only one in fifty thousand people survived the biowarfare. Having learned about the agents they used I believed it. The Chrisian Unity had actively participated in genocide and nobody was doing anything more than formally complain.

Data transmitted by dying soldiers throughout the Republic showed that it was Rentak and Osirus couriers that released the biowarfare agents and transported the assassins. Our homes were destroyed and occupied by religious fanatics, our lives were shattered and few of us had skills besides the ones we had learned in the miltary. So when we came out of cold sleep we had little choice and most of us turned to mercenary work. It was easy really. The Ashanti class cruiser we had slept on had a complete nanofactory which could make anything short of a starship.

We found some asteroids with suffecient minerals and began making weapons and other equipment to sell. The cruiser named the "Hathcock" had been an Armsman deep space support ship which had been under the command of Staff Sergeant Jameson when Antebbe Space Station blew so it had facilities and tech codes for a wide variety of weapons and equipment. We were able to sell just enough to equip ourselves. Some of us made up teams but a lot of us went out own ways. Because I was acting as an evaluator during the op my squad had been aboard Antebbe space station with fourth squad and fifth squad.

Also all five of the units officers had been on Antebbe space station for a special training. It was only blind luck the Hathcock had been out of port practicing insertions on the uninhabitable planet below. It was supposed to be a special training phase for our NCO’s to operate without officers. Our CO had thought up at the last minute for first through third squads, it was something to keep us busy and it saved our lives. It didn’t save the lives of my people though and it didn’t save fourth and fifth squad.

A lot ran through my mind as I changed disguises to another, older mercenary persona, which was the one I had come to the station with. I stepped out of the trashed alley and made a bee line for my ship. I didn’t want to spend any more time on Bast than I had too.

With my hand on my beamer I approached the airlock leading to my ship, there was plenty of opportunity for an ambush and I hugged a wall. A single bum laying in some trash was the only person I encountered though and he or she didn’t even notice me. The lock itself slid open for me at my after scanning my palm for DNA match. Not that it meant much these days but DNA scanners were very hard to bypass.

Inside my airlock I felt a little better. The ship itself was an upgraded centurion, an extremely common mercenary fighter. It was heavily armed, armored and had a little cargo space for special gear. Unfortunately it had little room for crew. One long shaft from top to bottom had recessed hand hold for use in gravity the cabins were small coffin sized sections extending from the central crawlway. The main room was barely large enough to stretch out in. With two people it was claustrophobic, fortunately I travelled alone. Overall the ship was cone shaped with the top of the cone being the bridge (two seats/beds in a cramped area. Both pilot and gunnery officer could turn around and look across the corridor at each other it was that small. The rec room was the bottom floor above that were various coffin sized cabins and storage lockers. The drives, engines, and other ship systems were located in the wings. It was small but it was home.

The airlock opened directly into the main room and the security bot did a more extensive scan of me for which I dutifully froze for. It was armed with lethal weaponry. I gave it the password command and it disappeared back into the closet it had come out of. As soon as I was in I gave the ship immediate commands for break away and I gave the ship a cursory examination as I climbed up into the cockpit. Everything apeared alright as I slid into the command chair. Usually the crew compliment of the Centurion was two, plus up to four passengers. But I had special computer equipment installed that let one person operate everything, two people would have been good but one person wouldn’t have any problems.

I slid the helmet on and linked up with the ship becoming the ship. Around me everything appeared normal. There were no interceptors nearby, no capitol ships maneuvering. The only thing I saw was a big fat merchant ship maneuvering for docking. That was when I noticed I had three e-mail messages waiting that were not from station central. The return address was Rentak, I checked the times and one was less than five minutes old and they were all from someone called "Knight".

That made me stop getting ready to flee and start thinking. The e-mail was less than five minutes old which meant it had been sent after my confrontation with the Rentak security jacker. Was it the same individual? I scanned it for virus’s and then ran it.

Mercenary,

Life is Honor

I looked at the message for several minutes thinking. Security wasn’t crawling all over me, that was true, which made things really strange. Why wouldn’t a jacker who had been in the Rentak mainframe and caught me not once but twice want to talk to me rather than arrest me. My analysis programs had classified the indentification-verification programs the Knight had used as authentic Rentak security programs. Then again he could have been some shit hot and illegal jacker. But that didn’t explain the ice. There was no doubt in my mind Knight was a Rentak Security jacker. The ice response was too quick, the identify-verify progs too authentic. Shoot. This made no sense. I knew too much to be captured alive. The first message was asking for a private meeting and promising a possible job.

The second message was similar to the first. Fudgestick. I began powering down and I allowed myself to relax a little bit. Checking the log I saw nobody had tried to do a detailed scan of my ship and somebody had tried unsuccesfully to penetrate my onboard computer. No problem there since my main computers were on a different system than my protocol computer which handled most messages in port. I didn’t keep anything important on my protocol computer, nobody with any IQ points did, they were too easy to break into. Someone hacking my protocol computer didn’t mean squat really, I didn’t ignore it though. I went down to the main room and got a fizpop and sat down to think things over.

It didn’t take me long, maybe ten minutes. Hell, the Knight could have jumped me much earlier and I had no doubt he could have had security crawling all over me. The big question was how had the Knight been able to identify me, and second was, why me?

A minute later I had sent off an e-mail message to Knight, text only telling him to meet me at Cyberdeath a virtual bar in the net in approximately half an hour. With the message sent I began prepping my progs for a run. Just to be on the safe side I also started prepping the ship for emergency break away.

I arrived at the VR "bar" which was really just a net address where people could meet and talk. In the net it looked like a cross between a bar and a mall. Nobody was drinking but at the counter you could get a wide variety of utilities for your console. My persona was that of a heavily muscled tiger man armed with a variety of different weapons. I found a space against the side of the node near the exit and relaxed there watching people come and go. I was a few minutes early but Knight walked in right on time. He looked around and found a table out in the open. Of course he didn’t recognize me and he wouldn’t be able to find me without his little identify prog and here in the VR bar people got touchy about strangers who indescrimanetly played with identify progs.

I watched Knight for a few minutes and didn’t learn squat, so making sure my attack and defense progs were ready, the infiltration computer on line I walked up to him and sat down. Instantly a privacy shield came up.

"Hello," I said cautiously. I liked to think I was ready for anything.

"May I run an ID?" he asked in his synthesized voice.

I gave him permission and he was apparently satisfied with the results.

"I would like to hire you," he started.

"I’m listening." The resolution of the Knight was superb, a real custom job and it kind of made me jeleous.

"I want you to escort a person to a `safe’ world." he said.

"Define `safe’ world," I replied. Hell, there were too many ways to define safe, it could mean uninhabited or one of any governmental systems.

"Outside Rentak’s influence."

Hmmm. . . . I thought, this was getting more and more interesting. There were a few places outside of Rentak’s influence, but only a few.

"You are a Rentak security jacker," I stated watching him for reaction.

He simply nodded.

There were too many complications, I didn’t trust it. "No," I said getting up. His hand reached out and grabbed mine but it wasn’t an attack.

"Please?" he said. In the net you can’t portray emotions digitally, it is impossible, but the way he said it I knew he meant it. Long ago when I had joined the Republican Marines I had believed in helping those in need and all that honorable trash that usually gets people killed foolishly. I had believed in honesty, integrity, courage and all the other boy scout traits. I swore silently to myself. I still did.

"How were you able to identify me so easily?" I said sitting back down. I could almost see him relax a bit apparently he knew I would listen to him a little more.

"Brainwave, Persona Overlay. Your brain has a special pattern that can be as distinctive as your fingerprints. It is also a part of your persona, with the right programs you can identify the B-P-O like a regular persona program."

"Why me?"

"I needed a small fast mercenary ship. When you came into port you fit the bill so I put a tag in different areas to notify me if you entered the net."

"How’d you get the original B-P-O?"

"When you first docked and contacted port authorities." I didn’t like that. It meant this jacker had way too much pull in the Bast net.

"Hmmm. . . let’s talk payment and destination. Be more specific than `safe world’".

Knight nodded, "Tau Ceti Five and I will pay you five thousand credits."

That would barely cover the cost of food, fuel and other perishables and I shook my head. "That barely covers transportation. I’m also going to have Rentak all over me? That’s dangerous." I watched Knight fidget for a couple seconds. Tau Ceti Five was a very independant and very poor. They were one of the few places that didn’t allow big corporations work within their sphere of influence without very strict restrictions. Which in turn kept a lot of corporations from doing business there. The government of Tau Ceti Five didn’t have much of a space fleet but they did have some pretty tough battle stations around the planet. It was also rumored they had a good intelligence network and had dirt on all the major corporations. A lot of people on the run from the corps ended up either there, Lexington Prime or at Proxima nine.

"I’ll pay you seventy five hundred, that’s all I can afford." He said. It seemed kind of obvious he was desperate, but why? There were too many questions I wanted to ask and I knew damn well he wouldn’t give me strait answers. He seemed too nervous to be involved in anything sanctioned by Rentak which meant he was operating almost independantly. Stranger and stranger. I thought about it for a couple seconds and was getting ready to say no, everything looked wrong. Sure it was within my persona as a mercenary, for all intents and purposes I was a mercenary not a freedom fighter but this would probably involve a lot of direct, personal, nasty contact with Rentak and without the advantage of cover ID’s to hide behind and abandon. Before I could tell him no he spoke.

"I can also give you five different Indigo class Rentak clearances that are good for anywhere in this sector."

That sounded too good to be true and now I knew for sure this guy didn’t want me to extract someone other than himself. Indigo was high with about six clearances below it and only two above it. The only clearances higher were Ultraviolet and Violet and only the holy of holiest Rentak executives got those clearances. If they were good we would be able to wreck some royal hell for a short while against Rentak, if they were real.

"How do I know they’re good?"

"I’ll let you test one. They are all back door clearances I’ve installed in various systems. Only I know about them and they over ride entry logs so your penetration won’t be logged as a Rentak employee."

Which meant it would be hell for Rentak to be able to find the backdoor unless they knew where to look, it also meant I was talking the the person to be extracted. People would literally kill for those codes. If Knight was giving away those codes it probably meant he had others. It wasn’t unheard of for a security jacker to leave backdoors into their own systems, it was extremely common. The offer told me just how desperate Knight was too. I knew that Rentak didn’t allow high ranking employees with sensitive information to simply retire, or when they did the retiree wasn’t exactly the breathing, mobile type of retiree. It also told me Knight didn’t plan on coming back to Rentak. The big question was how important was Knight. How much would Rentak want him back?

I sat back and looked thoughtful for a couple minutes. "How do I bypass the B-P-O?"

"I’ll give you a utility for it," he said. This guy was obviously desperate, if he was real. There were too many ways I could see this being an elaborate trap.

"Alright. Give me the utility and passcode now. I’ll meet you at Le Gusarme in Green sector in three hours. When you leave e-mail me what you will be wearing so I can identify you. Don’t worry about identifying me, if things look wrong you won’t ever see me. When you board my ship expect to pay the seventy five hundred."

He nodded and reached out with two pearls, the universal icon for programs. I took them, ran a ID prog on them, when I was satisfied I got up and left.

The first thing I did when I got back to my ship’s VR was analyse the programs for virus’s. When I they were what they appeared to be and clean I installed them and went for a little trip into the Rentak system.

Shooting down a data stream into the Rentak system I was ignored completely by the first level of ice. I didn’t do anything other than wander around various areas and I stayed well clear of any really sensitive areas like Research and Design which would be crawling with black ice. Apparently the programs he gave me worked flawlessly. Satisfied I jacked out of the system and began getting ready for the meet.

I wanted to be able to move fast and I wanted to be able to carry something other than the station authorized stunner. My beamer pistol had stunner function and it scanned as a regular stunner but I wanted a little bit more. I looked longingly at the assault beamer but that would be too obvious so I slipped a sub beamer into my disguise bag along with a few grenades. I also slipped a few hold out weapons into their regular places. Then I slipped on my battle dress. For all intents and purposes it looked like a space suit or an ancient wet suit because it was tight fitting. I didn’t put on any of the additional armored plates because that would be a little too obvious. It’s camoflauge setting was set to immulate a Ned Mercenary Corps space suit in color but that could be changed. I had one of my bots dirty it up a little since Le Gusarme was a really nasty, disreputable meet place and I didn’t want to look out of place. Throwing the rest of the stuff into my kit bag I was ready.

Stepping out into the corridor I looked around and satisfied nobody was waiting for me I started off. As I was walking down the corridors I ran over again in my head the location of security stations and back routes from the bar to my ship. In my suit I didn’t look out of place since a lot of people didn’t trust the station authorities not to accidently depressurize the area they were in.

Three reasons I had chosen La Gusarme. One was that I could hack into their surviellance system. Two was any security personel would stand out like a sore thumb. Three was the proximity to my ship. Right outside the bar were several old battered vidcom booths, one of which I comandeered. Jacking into Bast station net I immediately set to hacking La Gusarmes surviellance cameras and set them on a loop so anybody who would look at them from a remote location would be seeing what happened two hours earlier, thanks to the recording. The I proceeded to watch the patrons.

Twenty minutes before the meet I checked my e-mail and found out Knight would be wearing a black collared shirt and red pants, his hair was black and his shoes were also black. He would also be carrying a blue carry on bag. I sent an aknowledgement and proceeded to watch both the patrons and the Bast net for any other jackers who were interested in hacking the cameras.

Five minutes before the meet Knight walked in. But Knight wasn’t a he, Knight was a she and she was hot. There was no mistaking her because of her description. There was also no mistaking the two security goons that followed her in. Most of the patrons were unshaven and dressed in ragged, old, clothes or ship suits. The two goons were to clean shaven and well dressed. Thier weapons weren’t obvious but I could see the telltale bulges. Obviously Rentak suspected something but they probably didn’t expect her to run, otherwise there would be more security types around. I looked outside the vidcom booth and didn’t see anyone besides the regular spaceport bums that would hang out in this area.

Turning my attention back to the goons I watched them start to get nervous. Which was not a surprise since I wans’t the only one that could see they were security. There were more than a few of the more criminal minded in that bar. It was also interesting to note Knight noticed they were security too and I could see her start getting nervous. Other patrons also pegged Knight as security so nobody messed with her. I watched one of the goons mutter into a miniture com unit and I knew it was time to move. Less obvious rienforcements would be enroute and I like to know who I was fighting.

I jacked out of Bast Net and headed for the bar. Inside it took a few seconds to orient things with what I had seen on the camera and I headed toward the goons which were sitting near the wall. The bar was kind of crowded which was both good and bad, it would hide my movements and hinder them. I flipped the grenade timer to thirty seconds and dropped it on the floor. Nobody seemed to notice the sound of it hitting the floor above the crash of the loud music and nobody noticed me kick it over toward the two goons. The grenade rolled up against the first goons chair and stopped. Perfect. I waited for about ten seconds and then made my way for Knight. She looked up at me, fear in her eyes and I noticed she almost looked over at the security goons but stopped herself. Good.

"I’ve been-" she started.

"I know," I said cutting her off and grabbing her hand pulling her to the ground. Just in time for the stun grenade to go off. There was no mistaking the sonic buzz that rattled your teeth and as soon as it stopped I started running for the entrance pulling her behind me. A quick glance showed the goons were out for the count along with a number of nearby patrons. Everything else was chaos as people headed for the door. Outside I used the paniced patrons as cover pretending to be one of them and Knight stayed with me. We got about two blocks away before we saw sign of a security response. Much to her credit she didn’t resist or give me any trouble. Apparently she had recieved a little real security training and she understood what was going on. Minutes later we were in my ship powering up. I locked her into one of the cubicles and headed for the cockpit.

The ship was ninety percent ready to go. I had one last mission before I left though and I jacked into the Bast net. I didn’t bother running any defensive programs other than bafflers. This was what we called a Data Rape in the Marines. I headed for the Osirus system with my ninja cat icon while my ship continued undocking with the station. My infiltration computer was a powerful, destructive, expensive and rare piece of hardware that was designed to be used by a commando jacker during a raid to access and disrupt enemy cybernet responses during a commando raid. It had brute force where civilians used guile and trickery. It didn’t try to sneak past ice it simply blasted it to the nether regions it was also very traceable and obvious. I rampaged through the Osirus net grabbing any and everything I could and destroying what I couldn’t. I must have dumped about eight ice constructs. Things moved to fast for me to understand what was going on. I wielded a weapon in both hands, one was flashlight which scanned and copied data the other was a hand beamer which I used to attack things. Then using the Osirus system I accessed the Rentak system and did the same thing. Osirus ice which was pursuing me clashed with Rentak ice which was opposing me. I didn’t have much time to rampage through the Rentak system before my system started losing too much integrity. I got several terabytes of information from both companies though and when I jacked out their ice was still fighting it out. I was sweating and physically exhausted and all I wanted to do was sleep. Unfortunately I still had to escape the station. I threw the contragrav generators to max and shot away from the station, probably causing gravity fluctations in that part of the station. As I picked up speed accelerating away from Bast Station I saw two interceptors change course to intercept. I swore. Not that they were unexpected but something must have slowed down their patrol. I had expected them to be a farther away.

"What’s going on?" Knights voice said over the intercom. She had been told to strap in, I hoped she had listened. My cover at Bast had been blown to hell, something I had planned to do from the beginning so I wasn’t stressed out over that. However I really hadn’t planned on having a passenger and that voice on the intercom distracted me for a couple seconds.

"We are being pursued by interceptors. I hope your strapped down."

"Anything I can do," she asked.

"Pray," I said and turned my attention back to the ship. Shields were still powering as were the weapons. It would still take a few minutes for the primary weapons to warm up and the fighters would be on me before then. Already their sensor scans were trying to break my ECM. Thirty seconds to contact. Jacked into my ship that was a long time. I watched a Rentak Patrol Frigate start powering up. If I wasn’t able to take care of the interceptors in time that could be a problem.

"If you want to watch you can jack into the system. By your head is a yellow panel with a set of cables," I said and plotted courses and intercept solutions.

Ten seconds out of maximum engagement range I recieved a communication from the interceptors.

"Attention Runner this is Gold four. Power down or prepare to be fired on."

My ECM was still foxing their sensor lock so missles weren’t a problem. The problem was their beamers and my shields. Thier beams would be able to cut right through my shields so I began powering down.

"WHAT ARE YOU DOING!" she said in a panic. I instantly regretted my descisinon to tell her about the cables.

"Shut up I’m busy," I said. The interceptors would be able to tell my shields were at low power and would know they could cut through it. They would also be able to tell my primaries couldn’t be fired safely either.

I changed to my external mic. "Attention Gold Four. This is Lioness. Am power down. Awaiting further orders."

"Your surrendering?" she said. I could tell how frightened she was. This was probably her first space battle and being strapped into a claustrophobic coffin while being helpless wasn’t very morale building.

"Hush," I said harshly. I wanted to comfort her and tell her what was going on. I didn’t have the time though as I acquired a target solution and continued powering down.

Both fighters came up along side me, outside the arc of my primaries if in case I felt suicidal. I was well inside the arc of theirs. Just a little closer. . . .

"Attention Lioness this is Gold Four. Come to a complete stop and continue power down. Any deviation and you will be fired on."

"Acknowledged," I said absentmindedly. Now they would be feeling confident and in control. They knew they had me cold.

My poppers opened fire and they flashed into shattered space debris. Now I shunted full power to my contragrav and shot away from Bast station. I was feeling kind of smug now. There was nothing on my scanners that could catch us. Unless I ran into bad luck I was home free. Gold Four and his partner hadn’t stood a chance.

Now I could see what kind of data I had stolen from Rentak and Osirus. Correction, I had to take care of Knight. I sighed and released her from the cubicle before climbing out of the cockpit and down into the main room.

"You bastard!" she said the second she saw me climb down past her cubicle toward the main room. She was still lying there looking at the bulkhead. I just ignored here I wanted some fizzpop. She came down right behind me almost stepping on my fingers.

"You want a fizzpop?" I asked trying to be pleasant. We were going to be stuck together for the next two weeks and it would be nice if we didn’t spend it all yelling at each other.

"Yes, thank you," she said taking one. I felt so tired it and at the same time exilerated.

"Why didn’t you tell me what you were doing?"

I shrugged. "I was busy." She shook her head, speechless.

"Names Doug, friends call me Kat," I said breaking the silence and holding out my hand.

She took it gingerly. "Doreen. Friends call me Knight."

I pulled out a seat and collapsed into it and she did the same. "So why did you decide to retire from Rentak?"

"My boss wanted to be more than friends and I didn’t so he started screwing up my life and career. I was returning the favor when I ran into some other information that made me decide there were other places to work besides Rentak.

I nodded knowingly. It was no surprise. Rentak used all sorts of methods to keep it’s employees in line. As far as an employee and Rentak was concerned a supervisor was god. If you didn’t make god happy you were history. Rentak liked to use subliminals and subsonics and all manner of tricks to keep employees in line. Of course while that was common knowledge outside of the big corporations inside the corps it was only rumor and heresy.

"So what are your plans on Tau Ceti?" I asked. She only shrugged which led me to believe she didn’t have any. So I sighed and gave her the guided tour of the Tigress, my ships real name.

Four days later after we were in the outskirts of the system approaching our hyperspace jump off point. I was going over the data I had ripped from the Rentak system when I came across seven heavily encrypted files and one file that seemed really strange. My system didn’t have the raw power that would be required to break the encryption so I put that aside for later. What really puzzled me was the damage report data feed for a Confed cruiser. The DRDF was part of a black box recorder that was used in an after action report to evaluate the damage recieved in a battle. All it did was record damage recieved and what had happened to the ship and it’s instruments. Sensor readings, target acquisitions, bridge and ship communications all came on their own black boxes. Cross indexing it with my log I found out the DRDF had been under construction when I ripped it which probably explained why it wasn’t encrypted. Apparently the ship CWS Earl was heavy cruiser of the Dominator class.

When I pulled up the specs for the Dominator I found out it was designed for deep space exploration, patrol and ship of the line duties. Which meant it did everything, a really versatile ship. I didn’t find a listing of the Earl in my data banks which didn’t mean anything, most military ships wouldn’t be listed. So why was Rentak fabricating a DRDF? What could they accomplish? There was a lot of other stuff that was encrypted but not nearly so heavily. I was willing to bet that the other seven files were also data feeds.

Doreen was also linked into my ships VR accessing the data banks and learning more about Tau Ceti Five when I called her.

"I’ve got a question for you?" I asked.

"What’s that?"

"I’ll give you back your seventy five hundred if you can decrypt these files," I said and gave her access to them. She looked at them and shook her head.

"It’s Viper Code. I’m not cleared that high. . . how did you get it?"

"When we were leaving the station I did a Data Rape. Ripped it from thier archives. What’s Viper Code?"

Her eyes had widened and I could see some fear in her. "Viper Code is the code used by Rentak’s Viper Security Net." I couldn’t tell if she was more worried about my rape of the Rentak system or the fact I had captured such high security data.

I just looked at her waiting for her to explain. "The Vipers are an elite security unit within the Rentak structure. They are also in charge of black ops. You know if they even think you have those files they are going to be coming for you?"

That didn’t particulaly worry me. I kind of figured they were already after me after the fall of the Draconian Republic. It just meant I would have to be a little more careful in the future.

"Do you know what they were working on at Bast?" I asked.

She just shook her head, too many thoughts were running through her head and I could tell she was wondering who I was and what I was up to. Most mercenaries didn’t rape the computer systems of major corporations. Most mercenaries didn’t even know about Intrusian Computers.

"Where did you get the equipment for that?"

"Draconian Republic, military special issue." I said. With todays data exchange it wouldn’t be long before they found out who had raped their system at Bast, it would just take time and probably confuse the hell out of them.

"But I thought they were destroyed by the Christian Unity years ago?"

"They were. I survived it. Did you know Rentak and Osirus were behind it?"

She shook her head but didn’t look surprised and I wondered how innocent she was. She had some pretty eyes which were complimented by the shape of her cheek bones. My mind was wandering in other directions when she asked her next question.

"If the Republic is dead than why are you causing trouble for Rentak? You can’t bring it back."

"Did you ever hear a story about the fourty seven Ronin?"

She shook her head.

"Are you familiar with the Samurai tradition of old earth?" She nodded affirmative.

"The story of the Fourty Seven Ronin occured a long time ago in ancient Japan. I forget the particulars but to make a long story short a Diamyo, a samurai noble, was disgraced and killed by one of his enemy who was very powerful. His samurai retainers were disgraced and now had a choice. For some the only honorable alternative was suicide. Others cast away that alternative and became Ronin, men of the waves, outcasts in society that were looked down upon as honorless mercenary outcasts. Those that became Ronin made a pact and travelled their ways. Many years later when the enemy of their lord had dropped his guard they banded together and attacked him late one night, killing him. The next morning they were all found dead. For having avenged thier lord’s honor they followed him into death and commited ritual suicide thus restoring their honor."

"So you are like one of these Ronin? Fighting back against the killer of your ‘lord’?"

I shrugged. She didn’t need to know that I wasn’t operating alone. It might help her though to understand why I didn’t like Rentak.

"That’s where you got the infiltration computer?"

"Yes, it was onboard my ship when the CU’s attacked. There was nothing I could do at the time except die a glorious but futile death, so I left."

She nodded and I thought about all those other members of the Republic Armed forces who had made the decision to die fighting. They had died fighting the wrong enemy. I wondered, not for the first time if theirs had been the more honorable choice. It certainly made it easier for them to deal with their pain and loss. They didn’t feel the loneliness and pain we so often did.

Thinking about all the others that had died started to depress me and that was never productive so I turned my thoughts away from it and tried to think of ways to hurt Rentak. That turned my mind back to those encrypted files.

Viper Security. What were they doing on some out of the way space station programming black boxes on a Confederation warship? What would Rentak have to gain from it. A lot of things went through my mind but none of them really made sense. I did have a name though the CWS Earl of the Dominator class. The Confed wasn’t that far away, relatively speaking. Maybe I could find out something about the Earl and that would clue me into what Rentak was up to. That is probably the first place the Vipers would look too.

But was it time sensitive?

"Tell me more about Viper," I said to Doreen.

She looked thoughtful for a minute. "What’s in it for me?"

I smiled. Perhaps she would survive longer than I had anticipated.

"What do you want?"

"What’s it worth to you?" she asked.

"Well. You disappear and their computer net gets raped. Do you think they would jump to conclusions? How vengeful is this Viper cadre?"

She looked at me long and hard and then spilled her guts about everything she knew about the Vipers. What she said scared me because they sounded pretty heavy. The best of the best and they answered directly to the Rentak Board of Directors. She didn’t know how large they were but they had the highest level security and equipment. They had their own Research and Developement and what they wanted they got, no questions asked. Doreen had been a security jacker for a long time and she had a healthy respect for the Vipers having encountered them rarely. They only worked on Rentak’s most critical projects and according to Doreen they never quit and they never failed. The lowest Viper member had the right of life or death over nearly all Rentak employees and like Rentak’s regular security they ruled through fear.

For more information please contact me at warcat@usmc.net