by Jim Fogarty
* * * *
The Silver Dollar was a custom ship from landing gear on up. Based on a 7,000 cubic meter streamlined, flattened sphere hull most of the ship was laid out on a single deck. A much smaller command deck housing the bridge, computer, sensors and avionics bays rested above the main deck along the center line. Rayburn and I took almost the full half hour to cut through the hatch leading to the bridge. Bakku was there, and sure enough, dead as the rest of the crew. Same way too. At his feet lay a small silenced pistol. Presumably the one used to execute the crew. The ship's nav computer, sensors and fire control systems were riddled with bullet holes. Things were looking up.
I slid down the ladder from the command deck to the lounge, “Any luck with the case?”
“Almost done, Sully,” said Sandy. Deep in concentration she manipulated the controls on the case. The latches popped and Sandy opened it, pausing for a second to be sure nothing exploded. “Ta da!” she said.
“You just earned your pay for the week. Now let's get a look at the contents.” I lifted out a folder from the top of the case and what I saw beneath it stunned me. I expected to see bearer bonds, but the stack was ten times larger than I thought it would be. A full five hundred bonds each with a face value of one million credits. I'd never seen a bigger stack of money. I handed the contract to the Professor, “John, give this a read and see what it says. Sandy, check the bonds out. They're probably fakes.” She picked a sheet at random from the middle of the stack and got to work. My chrono beeped-- two minute warning for down jump. “Emmett, quit staring at the money. It ain't yours. Man the comms in the bridge, and if the pirates hail us stall them.”
“Sure. I'll just tell 'em that the crew is taking a nap and to call back later.”
“I don't care what you tell them. If they think the deal's gone spinward they'll ventilate the hull and keep her for scrap. The four of us can't put up much of a fight, and with the main comp down we don't have any fire control. And watch your back up there, there's still a killer on board.” Rayburn drew his sidearm and made his way up to the bridge.
“Well after a quick check these look good.” Sandy said, putting her hand scanner back in her tool satchel. “The stock is high grade laminated polymer embedded with security fibers and radioisotopes. There's fully animated holographic printing on both sides. These look good. Best fakes I've ever seen.”
“How can you tell?”
“The mix of isotopes is wrong. Each bond series is embedded with a specific set of radioactive molecules. Based on the date of issue and the rate of decay it is easy to tell if they are genuine. The mix is way off. It's like they didn't try. These may be pretty, but they won't fool any bank. And I doubt our pirate friends will fall for them either.”
“The contract looks good. It's like you said. SGT is contracting with the pirates to provide security services for their transports. In essence it is protection money but the amount is a full five hundred million payable biannually. Smith is buying protection for their fleet for the whole sector. These pirates must be better organized than we ever thought possible. Half a billion, that's some flash.”
The ship shuddered as it made the transition from J-Space to normal space. “Whoever planned this humped us good and hard. It had to be someone high up at Smith. Somewhere on this boat is a killer with 500 million in untraceable bearer bonds and us set up to take the fall. The crew is dead and us, the hired gun security, still drawing breath. It's obvious we cut our way on to the bridge. And even if the pirate skipper buys our outlandish tale and doesn't vent us, we don't have his coin, not real coin anyway. We sure as hell can't pay them with this crap. His only play would be to take the Dollar. Our only play is to find the thief, get the bonds back and pay off the pirates according to this contract.”
“O'Quinn,” Rayburn shouted down from the hatch leading to the command deck. “The pirates are not far out. They were sitting here waiting. They got a fleet alright. Transponders indicate three broadsword class cruisers. I told them the J-capacitor blew on jump and fried the M-Drives. It should take them about an hour to thrust on over. Unless you got a plan I'm gonna break into the bar and down some of that aged hooch Carlisle sipped on every night.”
“Break in. That's it,” I said. “We had to cut our way into the command deck because the hatch was dogged from the inside. Not just locked electronically, but physically barred. Whoever locked them had to do it from the command deck. Everybody up.” I raced over to the ladder followed by my team.
Compared to the main deck, the command deck was tiny. A small corridor ran fore to the bridge and aft to the computer and sensor bays. There were two hatches in the ceiling, each leading to one of the dorsal turrets. I thought someone might be hiding in the turrets. I motioned the team to check them. Sandy and the Professor, both with gauss rifles, covered Rayburn as he opened each hatch. Both compartments were empty. “Search everything. The killer got on the bridge, dogged the hatches and left somehow. We've got to get that money back before those happy fun balls get here.” We started pulling panels and equipment and didn't take long till we found a small passage behind some of the avionics gear, retrofitted into the ship after construction, it was good. “This is no hatchet job, it must have taken time,” I said. Sandy handed off her gauss rifle to Rayburn, shed her armor, drew her pistol and crawled into the passage. She never would have fit armored up. “If you see anyone shoot first and then shoot him again.”
She wasn't in there more than a minute when she called out. “It's empty. There's a nest in here. Whoever it was has been here since we touched off. There's a second exit, looks like it leads to the cargo bay.”
The three of us were down the ladder and double timed it to the cargo bay. The hold was empty, but the opened locker next to the aft air lock was missing a vacuum suit. I ran to the locker and began pulling on a suit of my own. “Emmett get to my cabin, in my locker you'll find an accelerator rifle. Get it, and bring the HUD goggles.” He ran off.
“Just what do you think you'll accomplish, Sully” the Professor asked.
“I'm going to get our money back and kill that bastard,” I said sealing up the torso and grabbing the helmet.
“Are you nuts? Do you know how big space is? We're in empty interstellar space. There isn't any sun nearby to illuminate anything. That guy could be 10 kilometers away, or just 10 meters and you'll never see him.”
“I'm the only one with any zero-G combat experience. I've got to try something. We're dead if I don't.” Rayburn returned and I donned the goggles before sealing the helmet. The heads up display in the goggles were connected to the sights on the accelerator rifle and would help with aiming the weapon by projecting a computer enhanced sighting image on to the lenses. It was the best way to aim the zero-G rated weapon while wearing the bulky vacuum suit.
“Anything I can do to help?” Rayburn asked.
“Just get to the bridge. Maybe Sandy can get the sensors working and we can get a bead on our guy.”
“Even if we could, unless he's running electronics, or broadcasting a beacon we're not likely to pick up anything. He'll be dark, and radar won't bounce back from a vacuum suit.”
“Just do it.” I told them the frequency I'd be on, slipped on the thruster pack and began to cycle through the airlock.
I always loved going EVA. There is nothing quite as peaceful as floating free in open space, only I wasn't in a peaceful mood. The stars were bright pinholes in contrast to the black of space. The Silver Dollar blotted out the stars behind me. I switched the visor to IR in the hopes I could see a heat signature. No luck in any direction I looked. I checked the timer on the HUD and it had been about 40 minutes since we were first contacted by the pirates. Twenty minutes and all I had to do was find one man hiding in all of infinity.
“Sully,” said the Professor's voice over the comm. I think we have something.”
“You got the sens
ors working?” I asked. Finally a spark of hope.
“Not really, but we got something. It's weak, about 80 klicks out and moving away at a steady pace. It's got to be our guy.” He gave me a bearing and I headed off at full thrust. It was the only shot we had.
A few minutes later I drew near the point the Professor had given me. I started to see a faint form in the IR. “I think it's our guy. I see him. There is a human form and he's got a duffel tethered floating along side, about 10 meters to his right.” This guy was taking a risk. In a best case scenario a man could last 96 hours or so in a vacc suit, maybe longer with additional O2 tanks, scrubbers and power cells. He must have planned to wait it out while the pirates took care of us and have a ship of his own jump in to pick him up later. It was a risky plan, but what a payday.
At 500 meters out I cut thrust and drifted in, closing at 10 meters a second. I raised the accelerator rifle and placed the electronic reticle over the form and waited as I got nearer. Specifically designed to be used in zero-G, the accelerator rifle fired projectiles in a two stage process. First the bullet is fired at very low velocity producing negligible recoil easily compensated by a thruster pack. Then a small rocket would kick in accelerating the round to a much higher velocity reaching maximum speed about 50 meters from the muzzle. The small shaped charge in the bullet nose would blow a large hole in any vacuum suit, venting the air and killing the wearer.
I waited till I was close before firing. Oblivious to me he faced away and drifted peacefully, content his murderous theft had been successful. As I closed distance I could see he had an accelerator rifle of his own. I had to make sure my shot counted. I kept the sight square on his torso and watched as the range finder in the HUD counted down to 50 meters.
I pulled the trigger expecting a three round burst, but nothing happened. “The damned gun misfired!” I yelled into the comm as I slid closer. He would be aware of me soon enough. I raked back the charging handle to put a fresh round in the chamber. At about twenty meters from him I fired again. Still nothing. “The gun's not working,” I cursed into the comm. “He must have sabotaged it. Our guy's good,” I said, pivoting so I could face the assassin when I passed and hit full thrust. I couldn't vector in on the first pass, but if I could get close enough I could still try to beat him to death with the rifle. That was all it was good for at this point.
The killer jerked in surprise as I slid past him. He hit his own thrusters and started towards me. For a few seconds the distance between us grew until we started getting nearer to each other. We were about 100 meters apart and I could see his accelerator rifle pointed right at me. I expected to see a puff of rocket exhaust in the IR before I cashed out, but he waited wanting the optimal 50 meter range. I consoled myself that at least I would be killed by a professional. I raked another fresh round in the chamber but still nothing.
I watched the range finder count down again. 70 meters. 60 meters. A brilliant flash filled the IR visor then it went black for a second, overloaded. When my vision returned I saw an expanding cloud of heated gas where the killer used to be. “What the hell!” I yelled into the comm.
“Glad to see you're still with us, Sully.” the Professor replied. “Do you see an object floating about 50 meters to your upper right.”
“Affirmative,” I said. It was the duffel. “Can you explain what just happened?”
“Collect that. It's the bonds,” he said. “We used the Dollar's fusion cannon.”
“But the ship's computer and fire control were shot. How did you manage all this?” I asked grabbing the duffel clipping my own tether to it.
“Well the computer is useless and it would take hours to repair. So I had Sandy bypass the computer and patch her currency scanner directly into the sensors. We scanned for the isotopes embedded in the bonds. That's how we found him. I wrote a quick fire control app on my handcomp and patched it in to run the cannons. We couldn't zero in on him till he activated his own HUD, then we caught the electronic signature. You can thank Rayburn for taking the shot. He insisted, and I don't think I could have talked him out of it even if I tried.”
Yep, putting the smarter guy as second-in-command paid off again.
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