No Easy Day

[Jane Hartman]

Temporary Storage Depot - Bay Four
Ames Research Station

Despite a move halfway across the docking bay, the long-term storeroom was much as she remembered it. Fist-sized boxes dotted the walls in alternating splashes of black and white like the work of an obsessive tiler. A scattering of people moved among the shelves, pausing before their allocated spaces before opening a box with a swipe of a key. Some of them were legitimate pilots, she guessed. Stay-overs, taking a night's rest in the journey from Kusari back through to Liberty. Most of them would be minor criminals without proper sanctuary taking advantage of Zoner hospitality to refuel, repair, or relax. Parasites and bottom-feeders that were no longer welcome in the society they thought they preyed on. Hartman smiled faintly at the contradiction. She had never heard of a predator that needed to hide from its prey.

A cheerful beep from her safe informed her that the old access card still worked, supplemented by a gentle hum as the station's pumps returned oxygen to the little container. Hartman's foot tapped an impatient beat on the rubber floor, as she waited for the safe to open. This was a moronic idea. She had no idea if the transponder was still functional, much less that it hadn't been moved in the intervening years. Even if it hadn't been, the risk in powering it up again...

Was worth it. She stilled her twitching shoe. She was here now. The decision had already been made. Perhaps it had been when she'd opened the safe fourteen years ago. Even then, she'd known that one day she would come back for it. Never could let sleeping dogs lie, could you? The box swung open.

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Docking Bay Four
Ames Research Station

"Let's go." Hartman pushed her way past the lone docking officer, what looked like a rough bundle of off-white cloth cradled awkwardly in her arms and a gray pouch clutched in her hand. Eyes fixed on the waiting Rhino, Hartman did not so much as pause to return the man's impudent glare. She moved in a daze, barely nodding to Lewis as she passed. The Lieutenant Commander was as she'd left him, patiently waiting by the ship. He never lounged but it was strange to see him just standing by the old ship. Some part of her still expected to round the Rhino's nose to find Lewis in full uniform, ready for a sparring match.

Hartman carefully placed the bundle in the cockpit's single locker before crouching at the ship's control panel. The cockpit's wiring was a jumble of mismatched cables and converters and it took Hartman three finger wrenching attempts to pull away the panel covering the communications system. Hartman stared at the resultant snake's nest of cables in dismay. It was a mess, no two ways about it, and miles separated from the carefully bundled wires that dotted her Bisons or the simplistic systems that had adorned her Eagle. Transponders were not devices intended to be replaced painlessly. Of course, she had engineers to take care of the large transports. Poking around in a ship's innards was not a profession she'd ever intended to make a career of. Nonetheless, a few minutes worth of prodding and a handful of scratches rewarded her with the IFF terminal and she made the swap, pocketing the previously fitted transponder. It was a make-do job that would have had any electrical engineer crying into his degree, but the green light that flickered into existence when she hit 'test' was as solid a confirmation as she needed.

"Right. A long way from a pretty, but it'll do. I'll fire up the engines if you hail control, let them know we're hauling off." With the wiring in place, some of the tension had faded from Hartman's features. She was still on edge, but now there was something else there. Impatience.

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