M. Planck - The Kassa Gambit

That’s where the kid came in.

The day after the accident, Kyle ambushed him after work, falling in step beside him outside the RDC complex.

“You coming back soon?” the kid asked hopefully, clearly still blaming himself. That made Kyle feel guilty for what he was about to do, but he reminded himself he was doing it for Kassa, too. If he could tell the truth about what was going on, the kid would volunteer anyway. So really, it wasn’t trickery, just basic security procedure—“need to know” and all that.

“I got a better idea,” Kyle answered. “Here, let me buy you a beer.”

Three drinks later, Kyle had him convinced. Now that they were partners, Kyle decided he should start thinking of the kid by name, instead of as that gangly young idiot.

“Bobby, right? My friends call me Kyle. It’s a nickname.” Kyle was still using his fake identification from the storage locker, but he felt Bobby deserved to know his real name.

They shook hands and agreed to meet tomorrow. Then the kid went home to study some more. Kyle spent the rest of the evening trying not to feel dirty. Since everything on Baharain was perpetually dirty, he failed.

Bobby was waiting for him when he got to the examination office. Kyle had come early; Bobby had come even earlier. He looked nervous.

“Worried about passing?” Kyle was. He needed this kid’s help.

“Nah,” Bobby said. “I can do it.”

Kyle shrugged questioningly.

“I didn’t tell my parents. Sent a letter last night, but I didn’t tell them.” Bobby was morose. At the end of the week there wouldn’t be a paycheck to forward to them.

Kyle forced himself to grin. “Don’t worry, it takes days for a letter to get there and back. By the time they can ask, we’ll be staking our own claim.”

“Sure,” Bobby said, but he still looked green.

Kyle took him inside and paid the fee. It cost half the credits he had left. Then he went to spend the rest of his money renting equipment.

“You didn’t get a plasma torch?”

Kyle pointed at the camera in the cargo bay of the buggy. “I figured we’d just take pictures, for our first trip.”

Bobby shook his head. The prospecting license had stiffened his backbone. Now that he had a piece of paper, he seemed to think he was in charge.

“We need a plasma torch, too. Look, there’s a rental store right next to vehicle air lock twenty-seven. We can stop on the way out.”

Bobby hadn’t questioned why they were leaving for a field trip in the middle of the afternoon. The kid was too eager to get his new career started. Kyle pulled over when they got to the equipment store, and shelled out some more credits. For now, he needed to keep Bobby fooled.

They swiped their papers and the air lock let them through. Once you got your documents, the government seemed to lose interest. Probably because there weren’t any more fees to be paid.

Outside, in the harsh light, Kyle accelerated, putting distance between themselves and the dome. Not giving the kid a chance to get cold feet.

Bobby spoke first, shouting over the noise of the buggy and the rattle of equipment. He wasn’t using a radio link. “We’re not really prospecting for metals, are we.” It wasn’t a question.

“No,” Kyle admitted. “I’m after something else. But I needed you to get me out here. Look, you can go back to work in a few days. They’ll still need you.”

“How do I know you aren’t bringing me out here to kill me?”

Kyle laughed, a short bark that was more anger than humor. “A little late to worry about that, isn’t it?”

“That’s why I made you get the plasma torch.”

Kyle noticed that Bobby had the fuel tank on the floor between his knees. His right hand rose up out of concealment, holding the nozzle.

“If I wanted you dead,” Kyle explained, “I wouldn’t have left in the same vehicle through the same air lock.”

“Maybe you were gonna fake an accident. You know, some kind of karmic revenge.”

“Then all I had to do was leave you alone. A kid as stupid as you, somebody is going to clean you out sooner or later. You told me your life story before you knew my name.”

Bobby was silent for a minute.

“Well … I’m learning.” He hefted the plasma nozzle again.

Kyle grinned. “Yes, you are. Now put that thing down before a bump in the road fries us both.”

“It woulda looked suspicious going out prospecting without one, you know. We had to get one anyway.” Bobby dropped the nozzle and put his foot on the fuel tank, to stop it from bouncing around.

“Good call. Okay, here’s the plan. We’re going to mess around until nightfall. Then I go into sector E-3. You’ll wait outside in the buggy. I’ll come back for you, and if I don’t, then you take the buggy and go on home. If they ask you questions, tell them I lied to you.”

“Why?”

The less he knew, the better off he was, but Kyle needed to build some trust. If Bobby thought he was out here to plant a bomb or perform an assassination, he might abandon Kyle the first chance he got.

“I want to take some pictures of the chief executive officer of RDC.”

“Blackmail … I bet that pays better than prospecting.”

The kid wasn’t so innocent after all.

“No, Bobby. I won’t be asking him for money. I’ll be taking the pictures back to Altair, and asking them to arrest him.”

Bobby stared at him.

“I think he had something to do with Kassa,” Kyle said.

They rode in silence for a while, anger radiating from Bobby’s gangly frame.

“I’m going with you,” the kid said. Not arguing, not asking, not whining. Just a statement.

War made people grow up fast. Too fast. Kyle almost turned the buggy around and took the kid home, but he knew it was too late. The young man had a right to strike back at the people who had destroyed his home. There was a war on, and Kyle had made his first recruit.

The sun finally approached the horizon, and their suits started cooling off. As hot and uncomfortable as it had been, it was about to become even worse. The heat you could at least shade yourself from, but the cold would reach you no matter where you hid.

“They don’t even allow flybys over this sector.” Bobby knew way too much about Baharain security, and he kept telling Kyle why their mission was impossible. “What if they have guards?”

“I looked, but I didn’t see any ads for external security staff. If they had outdoor guards, they would have to hire new ones on a regular basis. Nobody could do this job long term without quitting.” Running security patrols in a place where the greatest danger was the air around you was the definition of a dead-end job.

“Cameras?”

“That’s why we’re going over at twilight. The rapidly changing contrasts should confuse any automated surveillance. I doubt they have people watching the entire border.”

They didn’t even have a fence. What they did have was a bright orange post stuck in the ground, with a warning sign. The sign was so old it was illegible. Kyle could see another post a hundred meters to the left, and assumed there would be one to the right somewhere.

The buggy’s navcom lit up, telling them they were on the edge of a restricted area. Kyle told it to shut up. He’d already cut off the buggy’s communications with the dome. Although the vehicle was equipped with satellite tracking, it was only for the driver’s convenience. It didn’t automatically report their location to some central headquarters. The government respected the typical prospector’s paranoia about being followed by their competition.

Kyle drove past the signpost and tried not to flinch. This would be a good place for anti-vehicle mines, but he didn’t really expect any. The insurance liability would be too great for a corporation to stomach. Only governments could leave a piece of ground fatally armed for decades. That was one of the weaknesses of government, in Kyle’s view.