Hammer and Crucible by Cameron Cooper (easy books to read txt) 📗

much had everyone guessed about us? Or were all civilians, not just spacers, reticent about dealing with authority?

“I am aware,” I admitted unhappily.

Juliyana exchanged a glance with me.

Harry took in our expressions and scratched under his ear. “Ya know, there’s a pair of miniature cargo drums sitting right beside the left-hand side of the bay doors. The blue ones, right?”

I nodded. I knew what he was talking about. They were pale blue vertical, rectangular sealed crates, the cheapest type of freight, used by families and individuals for heavy stuff which couldn’t go via the bulk parcel services.

“Carry one of them,” Harry said. “Up against your chest. No one would see your face unless they wanted to.”

“I’m not that strong,” I pointed out. The drums had to weigh more than me and Juliyana put together, when they were loaded.

“They’re empty dead-head, this trip,” Harry said.

Thank you, I mentally breathed. “Where do you want them parked, beyond the lock?”

“Anywhere you put ‘em down will be fine. We can find them again, and it’s not like there’s anything in them we have to deliver.” He shrugged.

The cargo bay door gave a little beep.

“Pumping,” Joy warned.

The tunnel was attached and atmosphere being pumped in.

My gut tightened.

“Best come over this side,” Harry said. “Soon as the door opens wide enough, you can go.”

We moved over to his side. The cargo bay door’s readouts were flashing notifications and warnings about insufficient pressure beyond the door—not that we could open it, now, anyway. Nothing would unlock the door, short of a nuclear blast, until the air equalized on the other side.

Then all the beeps and alerts and flashing lights turned off.

Silence.

Juliyana pulled in an unsteady breath, her gaze fixed on the door. Her feet were spread in a ready stance.

A heavy thud of titanium bolts opening sounded inside the door. Then the hiss and breaking of the seal around the door as it shifted. A pause to let the air into the interior of the seal, to break the vacuum which held it locked.

Then the door rumbled to one side.

As soon as the door was wide enough to get through, Juliyana slipped through it and was gone. I followed her.

Juliyana had sensibly moved around the edge of the cargo bay, where a corridor of space was kept free, instead of down the center lane which was also kept open. The cavernous room had cargo carriers stacked up nearly to the ceiling.

I jogged after Juliyana. No need to move at top speed yet—I had glimpsed the outer door of the station at the other end of the tunnel—it still wasn’t open yet.

I found Juliyana at the edge of the cargo bay doors, which were fully retracted. She hoisted one of the two crates up into her arms, as if she had expected it to be heavy. It looked heavy, because the shell was reinforced with thick ribs. Yet Juliyana nearly threw the crate over her shoulder.

Forewarned, I picked up the other crate. It was as light as a feather. We stood by the doors, watching the outer station airlock door, waiting for it to crack open.

With a hiss and a sigh of old pneumatics and pumps, the door cranked open. I could hear the wheels grinding, somewhere inside, and gears moving on metal tracks with a heavy ratcheting sound.

There were people on the other side of the door, becoming steadily more visible the wider the door opened. I scanned them. Dirty overalls, basic blues, browns, greens. None of the charcoal black uniforms I was braced for.

“Ready?” I breathed.

“Fuck no,” Juliyana breathed back. “Only way is forward, though.”

True.

“Don’t run until we have to,” I warned her as the door came to a shuddering halt. I stepped out onto the interleaved metal plates of the tunnel. The sheath around the tunnel was opaque, so I could see basic shapes, but no details. I walked along the tunnel, my boots making the plates shudder and yaw. I wondered what the really heavy cargo containers did to the tunnel when they were lorried over to the station.

I hitched the barrel up into a more comfortable position and kept walking. A woman with ruddy cheeks and a put-upon air stood at the wide door, a pad in hand. The chief stevedore.

I wasn’t concerned about her stopping us for formalities, for all of those would have been sorted out while the Queen moved from the gates to the station.

“In a hurry, then?” she asked, her voice gruff.

“Hot date tonight,” I murmured as I stepped up onto the station floor and felt solidness beneath my feet.

The other workers who had been milling about the door were drifting away. Their job of coupling the ship had been done.

The air lock was the same size as the external door. Another door exactly the same dimensions was on the other side of the ten-meter wide airlock. It was closed. Instead, a man-sized door to the left, in the side wall, was propped open. It had similar warnings and locking mechanisms to the main cargo door. The workers were leaving through it.

I turned toward the door.

“Welcome to Devonire,” the stevedore told me. She made it sound like a curse.

I grunted, a wordless acknowledgement.

“Thanks,” Juliyana said, her voice strained.

I stepped through the door and only then realized that the crate wasn’t just obscuring my face, it was also blocking my view. There was a whisper of sound and the sensation of a very large space around me. The ceiling was up high. The main level of the station would be as open as possible, with a central core where the cable car passed through.

To my flank, on either side, I saw bright lights and white walls—standard neutral station décor. Observation windows to my right, which was the direction of the other two ships’ landing bays. Four combat Rangers in their dark uniforms stood at the windows, peering at the newly arrived ship.

My heart seized. My breath, too.

I turned in the opposite direction, which put my back to them, and started