Incident at Ida (standard:science fiction, 2260 words) [1/3] show all parts
Author: Goreripper	Updated: Jan 18 2002	Views/Reads: 4232/2478	Part vote: 0.00 (0 votes)
Two Special Agents are dispatched to the crime-ridden Ida binary asteroid system to investigate a possible alien attack.

Click here to read the first 75 lines of the story


Slade was standing by a craps table, next to a couple of hoods like a
rose between two thorns. Not that she wasn't attractive ordinarily, but 
bookended by those two eyesores, Charley Slade looked downright 
delectable. 

"Nice pair of thugs you have there," Bartlett said as he approached. The
less simian-looking one glared at him. 

"Cutter and Pyle," Slade said by way of an answer, nodding toward each
of them in turn. The one who had glared was called Pyle. "They were 
working down on Ida at the time of the event." 

"Somebody needed some roughing up, huh?" Bartlett asked. 

"We're freight handlers," Pyle growled back. 

"Of course you are," Bartlett said cynically. "Handled any interesting
shipments lately?" 

"Listen, we don't have to talk to no cops!" Pyle snapped. 

"We're not cops," Slade replied. "No cop would be stupid enough to come
here." 

"Besides you don't have a choice," Bartlett said curtly, cutting her
off. "Ortega wants you to talk to us. An errant xenomorph could do 
serious damage to his operation here, and considering no one else here 
seems to have the balls or the brains to do anything about it, he needs 
us to do it. So you better let on." 

Pyle scowled and clammed up. Cutter, who looked like a Darwinian
throw-back, glanced around nervously. 

"I'll tell you," he said quietly. 

"Yeah, let him tell you!" Pyle roared. "Can I go now?" 

Slade looked at Bartlett, who shrugged. 

"Sure," said the female agent. "But don't go wandering off." 

"Yeah sure mum," the thug said with disgust and disappeared into the
crowd. 

Cutter seemed relieved that Pyle had gone. He gestured toward a dining
booth beneath the massive window and the others followed him. Both 
hoped he would talk a lot, and fast, particularly now that Pyle had 
probably gone off to tell his boss there were two Alliance agents 
snooping about. 

Milo Ortega really had told the Xenomorph Investigation and Strategy
Branch about his suspicions. "Doing my civic duty" he had put it, in 
the classic tradition of every crime lord in history. It was more 
likely he was concerned about any possible financial impact on Dactyl, 
however, than because it was an executable offense not to report a 
suspected alien encounter--particularly one that included bloodshed. 
Nevertheless, Bartlett and Slade hardly expected a warm welcome from 
Ortega's lackeys here. Any semblance of law and order in a place like 
this was usually met with violence no matter what the reason. Special 
Agents were virtually dead men walking. 

Daniel Cutter sat down heavily in the booth and started talking. He had
a dry, quiet voice that belied his appearance and he seemed somewhat 
more intelligent than Bartlett had surmised. The guy wasn't a genius by 
any means, but he was articulate and a good deal more helpful than his 
cretin partner. 

"Pyle and I were working the relief for a couple of the guys in the
southern sector docks," he began, and waved over a waitress. "We were 
running a bit late because I'd been waiting for Pyle to finish up with 
this slut he'd picked up--beer," he said, looking up to the waitress as 
she reached the booth. She waited briefly for the others to order but 
neither paid her any heed. "So we were running a few minutes late. Pyle 
didn't give a shit, but I was pissed off because we get docked for 
every minute we're late, so we were arguing. We wouldn't have heard 
nothing anyway because Ida's got no air so, you know, there's no sound 
around unless you're in a hangar or a blister, which we weren't. So 
we're walking across to the south side, arguing, and we get to the 
blister, and when we get our helmets off there's this real foul stink. 
Pyle reckoned it was sulfur, but it just smelt like a real bad fart--" 

He stopped again for a moment as his beer arrived, then went on: "Well
we thought maybe one of the boys had, you know, dropped some cargo or 
some shit. Pyle said something like, 'Kranstein' -- he's our boss -- 
'Kranstein's gonna kick someone's ass for this,' and we went forward up 
to the entry lock. Usually when you're late there's some of the guys 
waiting around there to dump on you and shit, but tonight there was no 
one. It was dead quiet and just stank! We both felt there was something 
pretty wrong by now. We buzzed the intercom a couple of times but there 
was nothing come back. I guess we both felt pretty dumb but we didn't 
want to go through the lock into the hangar. So Pyle decided to call 
Kranstein and asked him if he'd heard from any of the last shift, like 
if anything had gone wrong or something weird had happened. Kranstein 
just blew his load like he always does and said he was gonna come down 
and kick our asses. Well, we figured we'd wait and see what he thought 
when he got there, but of course we went back outside 'cause the stink 
was so bad." 

"So what happened when Kranstein got there?" Slade asked. 

"I'm getting to that," Cutter said, taking a drink and wiping his mouth
with a sleeve. "Kranstein turned up with Young and Fuller, two of his 
goons. If your buddy here thinks I'm a thug he should've met those two 
guys. So anyway, Kranstein's yelling and shit and Young and Fuller are 
standing there smirking and shit, and Pyle just yells at him 'Well why 
the fuck don't you go in then?' at him. I think Pyle was pretty creeped 
out. I know I was. Kranstein just looks at him like Pyle's hit him or 
something, and then he says, 'Okay, smartass, I might just do that,' 
and him and his goons go on through the blister to the hangar. Me and 
Pyle are hanging back, following. Kranstein opens the door, and I could 
see that he knew something was up, but he had to make himself look good 
in front of us and Young and Fuller, so he opens the door and goes 
through. The other two go in after him. Pyle and me just stood at the 
doorway." 

The freight handler took another drink that almost drained the glass and
called for another before he went on. Bartlett scowled and Slade rolled 
her eyes at him. The man had no patience. 

"Lucky for us I was standing next to the door release," Cutter said
after a few moments. "The stink was real bad now. Me and Pyle, we could 
see that all the guys were dead. They were all tore up and shit, and 
the stink was real bad. Kranstein and Young went a little way inside 
and then there was just this ripping noise and Young went flying. We 
didn't see where he went. Fuller came back out white as a sheet and 
screamed at me to shut the door. I was so jumpy that I just did it. I 
didn't even think about Kranstein still being in there. Fuller just 
ran, so we did too. It wasn't until we got to the exit that Pyle asked 
what happened to Kranstein and Fuller just said 'He's gone' and then he 
just freaked out and started shaking and shit. Man, I never seen that 
guy lose it before, ever. Fuller's a cold-blooded bastard, done time 
for murder, rape, all sorts of violent shit. The guy's a nut. But he's 
on the floor blubbering like a girl." 

Cutter looked up at the agents. 

"I don't know what's down there but it ripped up ten guys like they were
paper and it done it pretty damn fast. Young and Kranstein didn't even 
have time to scream." 

"What happened after that?" Slade asked. 

"Well, some of the other reliefs turned up, and Fuller wouldn't let them
in. As I said he's not the guy to argue with so they went away, but 
they was losing money by not working so they got Yale to come down. 
Yale's the administrator of the sector. He's a pretty sharp guy. He 
sees Fuller's face after we tell him what's happened and he just locks 
down everything then and there, sends everyone home and I guess he must 
have told Cordeja. After that me and Pyle decided we'd just make 
ourselves scarce so we came here. Been here ever since. Couple of 
Cordeja's flunkies spoke to us but they were more interested in 
Fuller's story. I don't know the story after that, except that 
apparently Ortega's ordered that nothing can travel between here and 
Ida except the robot transport. Since we left no one's gone down or 
come up." 

Cutter finally stopped and Bartlett checked his analyser. There was
nothing to suggest the handler was lying. For once, he allowed himself 
a smile. 

"Thanks for your help Mr Cutter," he said, with a surprisingly amount of
civility. He turned to Slade. "I think it's time we paid Alphonse 
Cordeja a little visit." 

Slade nodded and rose, and the pair of them crossed the crowded casino. 

Daniel Cutter finished his beer, then hurried down to the departure
lounge to meet his flight. After three years of making buckets of money 
from minor scams and craps tables, he no longer felt any desire to be 
anywhere near the Asteroid Belt. 

END OF PART ONE 


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