Read Randolph Lalonde - Spinward Fringe Broadcast 08 - Renegades for Free Online Page B

for went into the quickly constructed
building. A large amount of basic supplies came from the Warlord as
well, sort of smuggled through the Triton so the Carthans didn’t
object to Haven Shore taking aid from an exiled ship.
    The blue and green
tinted floors and walls were once sheets of cloth and viscous liquid.
Using nanotechnology and magnetic fields, the place was shaped wall
by wall, room by room, and the materials hardened into light but
incredibly strong structures. The Everin Building wasn’t so much
built as it was shaped. It was still a shell for the most part, with
only bare rooms and the most basic amenities, but when it was
finished, it would be fully modern. The small vehicle bay in the
bottom level of her apartment would deliver her fighter to a central
area where it would be serviced, then it would be returned using
Haven Shore’s transportation system, which would extend to every
floor of the building through branching passages and lifts.
    Alice climbed from her
fighter as the landing platform retracted into her apartment. She was
already planning how she’d get to the beach. There were always
people heading in that direction on skid trucks, especially before
high tide. Two thirds of the long beach would disappear as Kambis and
its other moons’ gravity focused on their side of Tamber.
    She dropped her ranger
kit in the middle of her small gathering room – a space she hadn’t
had a chance to fill with more than a couple of portable chairs –
and checked herself in the mirror. After a moment of trying to get
her hair into a manageable pile and adding a little makeup, she gave
up and headed for the door.
    Thoughts of leaving
Haven Shore and her situation of increasing comforts were fading as
she started looking through swimsuit shapes for her vacsuit. She was
already smiling at the idea of the beach trip and relaxing with
friends for the first time in two weeks. Ashley would be on the beach
with Zoe, and several of the rangers Alice trained with were already
there expecting her. Her eagerness faded as she opened her door and
saw a young man sitting beside it, nodding off.
    He got to his feet with
a start. He was wearing a yellow and white worker’s vacsuit, and
was barely out of his teens. It took a moment for her to recognize
Soren, one of the ranger trainees who left training after a week and
a half. He was savvy with technology, but couldn’t keep up
physically, and hesitated in mock combat. “Alice, I’m sorry for
coming here like this, but you weren’t on Crewcast, everything just
went to your mail.” He looked absolutely distraught.
    “Rangers turn social
mode off while we’re on patrol,” Alice said. “What’s wrong?”
    “Right, I forgot,
that’s procedure, I forgot, sorry. I would have brought this to the
Council Office’s attention, and I know they’d send a ranger to
take care of it, or maybe even just normal Haven Shore security, but
I wanted you. I mean, I know you from training, and I think you’d,”
he stammered, “maybe you could take care of this?”
    “Just take your time,
I’ll help if I can,” Alice said, leading him into her apartment.
    “Okay,” he said,
taking in the small main room. The privacy seemed to calm him down a
little. “You could use some furniture.”
    “Tell me about it,”
Alice replied. “Your problem?”
    “Yeah, well, when I
washed out from the rangers I applied for a position in robotics, and
I didn’t think I’d get it because my scores as a ranger trainee
were bad at best, but mostly incomplete. They didn’t care. I got a
spot on a team working on making network detached helper and builder
bots out of the ones we bought for next to nothing on the mainland.”
    “I’ve seen a bunch
working, those little skitters that follow the workers around,”
Alice said.
    “Yeah, they’re
working out great, even with some of the weird stuff that’s been
going on. A lot of us anthropomorphise bots when we’re working on
them, talk to them