Part 2: UTS EXUBERANCE
* * * * *
Chapter 6
Jenkins hesitated, three of his front manipulative limbs on the wheel that would open the outer airlock hatch for the first time. Until this point, both Jeha of Detritus-2 had drawn courage from the high-spec concealment provided by their tiny stealth cylinder. They had hidden in plain view – just another chunk of annoying space detritus – until a few hundred klicks from the enormity of the UTS Exuberance, when they switched to active concealment and full-band ECM. Coasting in for a soft landing in the lee of an enormous radiator array near Bay 82 had made his segments curl in fear. He’d been forced to yield control to young Zarbi while he rediscovered his courage.
Now that their craft was cocooned in stealth wraps, an observer would have to poke it with a stick before realizing it was there. They were safe, so long as they stayed here.
If only he could. This was the moment he’d dreaded. He had to go outside.
“Zarbi, do you think we should wait for the captain?”
“If she could hear you ask that, what would she say?”
The carapace segments on his back curled protectively as Jenkins winced at the anger in Blue’s imaginary reply.
“I’m going in,” he said and tightened his grip on the airlock opening control.
The outside of the airlock was part of the Exuberance’s outer hull that they’d drilled through and incorporated into the existing Detritius-2 airlock. In and out without anyone the wiser. Just one swift turn of the wheel, and he’d be through.
“Jenkins, if you want me to go instead, you only have to ask.”
“Don’t be impertinent. I’m just considering our options. There’s hardly a hurry, Zarbi. After all, Midnight Sun has not yet docked.”
“They’re late,” Zarbi agreed. “They’re loading something before the dropships board and deliver the troopers. It’s very strange. But if they abandon us, we’ll just enjoy a vacation on full pay. Are you sure you don’t want me to go first?”
“You’re barely qualified to operate the radio, Junior Rating Zarbi. My task requires experience and skill far beyond your abilities.”
He turned the wheel, and the much larger circle of the outer airlock turned in unison. After a brief hiss of pressure equalization, the hatch opened into the darkness of the UTS Exuberance.
He floated through and was immediately met by the robot defenders of the giant freighter. The hellish red glow from their welding arms illuminated powerful pincers, cutting tools, and grinding jaws.
Damage control servitors.
Jenkins screamed inwardly as he was forced to crawl between the machines, but they seemed to reach a decision that he didn’t need to be cut up and disposed of today.
He made it through and immediately hit his antennae against the barrier of the air scrubbers. With flashlights in two of his manipulative arms, he set to work boosting their performance. This wasn’t as segment-curlingly terrifying as squeezing through the servitors in the dark but was ultimately more dangerous. All spaceship crews feared the failure of their life support systems and would closely monitor their status. Jenkins was going to damage the efficiency of this air scrubber when he cut a tunnel through its heart, but it was the only viable route into the ship. As he cut his way through, he activated portable scrubbers he’d brought from the Detritus. If he’d calculated this correctly, the damage he was causing would be matched by the increase in capacity he was adding.
And if he got this wrong, alarms would trigger, and a maintenance squad would be dispatched. He would be captured, tortured, and killed. With luck, Zarbi might escape.
He pushed through and into the ventilation shaft network. Three minutes later, he was looking through a worm camera poked through a ventilation grille into a general access passageway.
It looked deserted. Jenkins passed through the aperture, sealing the grille behind him, and floated in the zero-g across to a rail that ran along the far bulkhead.
As the infiltration spy landed on the rail designed for millipedal beings and hurried along to obtain distance from his point of entry, he drew increasing courage from the perfection of his disguise. Senior Rating Tk’ch’kl’l, known to beings with inadequate mouth parts as Jenkins, had been left behind on Detritus-2. In his place roamed an entirely different individual – Tch’kh’lk’l, a once-respected engineer now busted to the lowest rank as a consequence of his addiction to gambling on illegal mammal fights. His electronic pass insisted he had a berth on the Spirit of Commerce, a high-value goods, no-questions-asked trader docked far away at Bay 17.
And if that cover identity grew too hot for safety, no matter. The disgraced engineer was only one of scores that Zarbi had cooked up for her superior.
Now that he was safely inside the Exuberance, the Jeha formerly known as Jenkins couldn’t wait to get started.
* * * * *
Chapter 7
Captain Blue made a point of always presenting herself as if she lived in an eager cloud of Tri-V cameras. And if all eyes and antennae weren’t trained upon her? Well, that was the galaxy’s problem, but she’d be damned if she’d let that cramp her style.
As she marched along the passageway near the Exuberance’s hull that connected the transit rider bays, her escort hurrying to match her pace, she narrowed her eyes and threw back her head in what she knew was a dramatic gesture for the hidden eyes she guessed really were recording her progress.
Her field-gray greatcoat, with brass buttons and captain’s insignia on the epaulettes, streamed behind her. She possessed two of the heavy woolen garments, and this was the larger one – the one with sleeves slightly too long and excess material at the shoulders that, in her eyes, made her look like a child in grown-up’s clothing. But there was a reason she’d chosen the ill-fitting greatcoat; sometimes a commander needed to make sacrifices in the service of her company.
UTS Exuberance would soon complete her last-minute loading, upon which she would apply spin about an axis running from bow to stern and then transition through the stargate. But for now, Deck 62 – Frame 27 – Zone 3 was in zero-g, and however menacing her appearance from the waist up, even the proficient use of her magnetized boots still left her looking as if she were wading through molasses.
She had more elegant means of transport, but this expedition had been rushed. Her part of the company had devised a set of plans for retrieving the Raknar from the Scorpions, but instead of immediately setting off after the thieves, Gloriana had ordered them off her ship to cool their heels on Port Hektatus while she’d made several runs from planetside to load Midnight Sun with a ‘contingency reserve.’
A backup plan. In case Blue failed!
To the Nightmare Hells with her. What did the alien bitch think she was playing at?
And whatever she’d loaded was heavy enough to affect Midnight Sun’s maneuvering profile.
Blue had been happy to take Gloriana’s money and safe refuge from all she’d been running from, but this little stunt had crossed the line. Blue was going to find out who this Gloriana really was before these little mysteries and delays added up to something that killed her or her sister.
At least the mysterious alien’s bottomless supply of credits had paid the huge bribe to shift the Maki pleasure cruiser to another Bay, leaving Bay 79 available for the Midnight Sun to clamp onto.
The Exuberance was two miles long and a mile across its beams, but this tactical application of credits placed them just three bays away from the UTS Arashi Nova, a decrepit tramp freighter that Jenkins – in his final update before going dark – had suggested might belong to those thieving Scorpions.
The Jeha had better be right, or this little expedition of hers was going to prove very embarrassing.
The passageway snaked left.
Suddenly a woman lunged at Blue. She ducked. Lieutenant Flkk’Sss pushed off with her four walking limbs and crashed into the human, wrapping all six limbs around her. But she was already unconscious. Another unco
nscious figure floated ahead.
It appeared the Midnighter advanced team were doing their job at securing their captain’s passage. She had to squeeze past Flkk’Sss and push aside the unconscious floating body.
The spineways that served the super-freighter’s forward clamp bays were suitable for larger races, with three magnetic walk-tracks running along their length. But in this zone designed for smaller races, everyone had to follow the sole mag-track buried in its annoyingly efficient corridors. She’d have preferred to make her entrance with a Tortantula at her back. Although Betty could squeeze through a surprisingly narrow space, she’d look less like an intimidating monster of war, and more like something shoved through a waste pipe to clear a blockage.
She turned another corridor and was met with a flurry of saluting Midnighters led by her elder sister. Blue snapped one back.
“Route secured,” said Sun. “No one was hurt. Not much.”
Blue clamped down on her expression. Her pinplants were running non-verbal communication analysis on a copy of the pulses running through the optic nerves. The procedure to put a splitter into her nerves had been agonizing, and she still sometimes woke up screaming, but the result came in handy at outwitting aliens. Unfortunately, it worked on human siblings too, and she didn’t like what they told her about Sun.
Even on a contract, her sister could no longer hide that she was happy.
Had to happen one day, Blue supposed, but it won’t end well.
Sun accompanied her past three more curled figures asleep in the zero-g, before they reached Bay 82 and the man who’d not only disabled most of the Scorpion sentries but was also the cause of the pride and affection Sun hid from herself, though not from her sister.
Pity. Saisho Branco not only filled his shirt appealingly but was proving very useful. All the same, she decided, he’d have to go. One way or another.
“Good work, Trooper Branco,” she said as he saluted in front of the access hatch to the transit rider that harbored the nest of Scorpions. She supposed she owed him a decent reference.
“Thank you, ma’am.”
She waved away the remainder of her escort and, while Branco busied himself applying the hand of an unconscious Scorpion to the hatch lock, she fantasized about running poisoned claws along his muscular back.
When the mechanism acknowledged the palm print, he glanced back. “Something wrong, Captain?”
“Yes,” she hissed. “Someone spoiled a good party.”
The two locked gazes for a moment. His face went blank, but her pinplants interpreted his closed expression as a threat assessment followed by conscious suppression of the fight-or-flight response.
Branco had just reclassified her as a hostile.
“Leave me,” she ordered and cast Sun’s handsome weakness from her mind as the hatch irised open. Blue stormed through and pushed off from the deck to float, with greatcoat billowing, through the stubby cylinder of the access passage and into the interior of the Arashi Nova.
She drew a crumb of comfort from the Scorpion logo stenciled over the left shoulder of the two CASPers on guard duty, tracking her every move. She’d have hated to waste this entrance on the wrong ship.
In this cramped and pressurized environment, she guessed those arm-mounted machine guns aimed at her center of mass would have a low-velocity hollow point load. She prayed they wouldn’t open fire, because they’d make a terrible mess of her greatcoat, and she was very fond of the garment – even this oversized one.
A sudden doubt wiped the smile from her face. She was taking a terrible risk, assuming James Sinclair would act like the brother she knew so well.
She swallowed hard and sailed through the CASPer killzone – close enough for them to snap out a spring-loaded blade and gut her on her own momentum – and passed unharmed through to the other side.
Then a powered gauntlet snapped out from behind a bulkhead and ripped her from the air.
* * * * *
Chapter 8
“You know damned well why I’m here,” Blue informed the faceless metal carapace. (CASPer Mark 7, she noted with professional detachment – the older model’s extra mass made sense on door duty). She smiled sweetly. After all, the merc had only to tighten his grip and Blue’s bones would be crushed to powder. “Where’s that mutton-headed sporran-smuggling eejit, James Sinclair?”
A Tri-V image of a young man with the freckles and red hair of a Sinclair appeared. Speak of the devil. “What have you done with my people on the Exuberance?” he demanded.
“Persuaded them it was time for a kip. Don’t make me hurt them.”
Sinclair’s holographic image regarded her critically for a long while before deciding her fate. “You two, don’t let her out of your grip. I’m sending Bonnie and McLeod to relieve you.” He rolled his eyes. “Couldn’t you have given me at least a few hours peace?”
The image looked away at something they couldn’t see, and Sinclair’s voice came over the ship-wide PA.
“All hands. Ship will move to condition two. Assume all areas of UTS Exuberance are hostile.”
Sinclair’s image turned and looked straight up at Blue. “If she gives you even the mildest anxiety – shoot to kill.”
* * *
“You hungry?” Sinclair asked as he brought a plate of steaming food from the autochef. When Blue didn’t immediately reply, he grabbed a beer tube from the chiller and sent both food and drink sailing leisurely over to where she sat, clamped into a chair by a plush arm that locked over her thighs. An arrangement to keep you in one place in zero-g, she hoped, not to hold you prisoner.
Dining was always a challenge in zero-g. The plate had a cover shaped like a volcano that allowed you to spoon your food through the narrow opening, while theoretically the pressure gradient would suck anything you missed back down onto the plate. The beer had a valve and straw arrangement. Both obscured her view of what Sinclair had offered her.
“Beer’s home-made,” said Sinclair as he dialed something for himself into the autochef. “Zero-g adapted yeast, finest Scottish six-row barley, and the result is filtered but not pasteurized. One of our chief engineer’s pastimes.”
“And the chow?” asked Blue, opening the food valve with her finger and taking a dubious sniff. It smelled delicious.
“It’s cheesy chips and gravy.” Sinclair grabbed a beer for himself, and what looked like an identical plate from the autochef, and joined Blue at the table. “You never told me what part of Earth you’re from.”
“That’s something you’ll never learn.”
He offered a lopsided grin. “Well, I can tell it isn’t Scotland, hen. Whatever secret lab you were created in, the people there would probably call this dish poutine.”
The name ‘James Sinclair’ was embroidered above the left breast of the slender young man’s tan utility suit. Pinned to either side of the high collar was his captain’s insignia. Very impressive for such a young man, only 24 years old, but he was the son of Colonel Alistair Sinclair. Did he deserve his rank?
His fair skin blushed a little under her frank attention, and suddenly he looked so freaking young. She laughed at her own foolishness. James was only four years her junior, and she shuddered when she considered what she’d seen and done by his age. There were no innocents in the mercenary world. Only killers. Which was why the pay was so damned good.
“I want those Raknar back,” she demanded.
There it was. That famous Sinclair grimace glaring at her, all tight lips, outthrust jaw, and red hair. She didn’t need fancy software linked to her optic nerve to read the determination in that face.
“If you and I go to war,” she said, “we’ll both have to pay out costly death benefits. Bad for business. Bad for our friends who wind up dead. Perhaps we need only make it look as if we go to war. No one gets killed. Your contract doesn’t pay out, but my owner transfers you a considerable number of galactic credits. With their share, your chief engineer could buy up all the breweries in Scotland. Maybe
the distilleries too.”
The young man sighed. “We’re wasting time. Oh, I know your shiny ball of a battlecruiser would tan our backsides if we battled it out in the black. But nothing will persuade me to de-clamp this ship until we reach the system where my friends are waiting, and your owner might be rich, but my friends are powerful. You come after me, and hundreds of terawatts of particle beam cannons would slice through your bauble in moments. Back off, Blue. You’ll die if you don’t.”
“How dare you threaten me!” she wailed. She threw off the arm across her thighs, grabbed her beer and poutine and pushed off to the recycler chute. She pushed out her shoulders, making her coat fan out like a cape as she opened her plate and threw the food into the recycler.
“Is that meant to be a statement?” Sinclair said with disappointment infusing every word. “Your highfalutin’ drama queen tantrum doesn’t wash with me, hen. In my world, enemies can enjoy good beer and food at the same table. Chucking it away makes no sense.”
She hesitated over the chute, letting the moment draw out. “Of course it’s a statement,” she snapped. “Your hospitality is rejected. A shame, because I was enjoying your…chips and gravy poutine. We can agree on one thing. We are wasting our time. You won’t give me what I want, and I cannot back down. When I walk out of Bay 82, our two companies will be at war.”
She pushed off from the table and sailed into the passageway without so much as glancing Sinclair’s way. As she passed him, she heard a chemical charge pack being snapped into a laser rifle.
“What makes you think you’ll make it as far as the end of that passageway?” challenged Sinclair.
Without looking back at the armed mercenary commander, she grabbed the passageway handrail and boosted her flight. “Because I knew your brother,” she replied. “Charlie has a strong sense of decency that he hides well, but not from me. Everything I’ve seen of you, Jimmy, reminds me of Charlie.”
The Midnight Sun (The Omega War Book 2) Page 4