Embustero- Pale Boundaries

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by Scott Cleveland




  BOOKS BY SCOTT CLEVELAND

  Pale Boundaries

  Embustero

  EMBUSTERO

  SCOTT CLEVELAND

  EMBUSTERO

  Copyright © 2012 by Scott Cleveland and licensors

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced except in the case of brief quotations used for the purpose of critical articles or reviews.

  Cover art by Taavi Torim

  www.istockphoto.com

  Images licensed via iStockphoto

  Cover design and layout by Scott Cleveland

  Interior design and layout by Scott Cleveland

  ISBN-13: 978-1480074729

  ISBN-10: 1480074721

  Genre: Science Fiction

  Genre: SciFi

  Genre: Science Fiction Adventure

  Genre: Space Opera

  First Edition: November 2012

  Kindle Edition: December 2012

  Printed in the United States of America

  For Rosalie Cleveland

  1942-2011

  Godspeed, Mom. We miss you.

  TABLE OF CONTENTS

  BOOKS BY SCOTT CLEVELAND

  TITLE PAGE

  COPYRIGHT

  DEDICATION

  PROLOGUE

  CHAPTER ONE

  CHAPTER TWO

  CHAPTER THREE

  CHAPTER FOUR

  CHAPTER FIVE

  CHAPTER SIX

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  CHAPTER NINE

  CHAPTER TEN

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  CHAPTER TWENTY

  CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

  CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

  CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

  EPILOGUE

  UPCOMMING

  AFTERWORD

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  PROLOGUE

  Proxima Cygni System: 2704:10:20 Standard

  Captain Shadrack lumbered down the corridor leading to the ship’s bridge like a water buffalo through a cattle chute, swearing that he’d never take on another government contract.

  Shadrack was a big man by any estimate; compared to the average spacer, he was enormous—eight centimeters shy of two meters tall, massing just under one hundred and fifty kilos. Many who knew him suspected that his ascension to command was driven as much by desire to escape the claustrophobic living conditions of the common crewman as professional ambition. He’d never given it much thought, but they were probably right.

  “Captain on the bridge,” Markland, the first mate called out. Shadrack had never served in the Navy himself and his indifference to the tradition over the years had tempered it to a casual informative declaration, a welcome change from the days when Markland snapped to attention and bellowed it at the top of his lungs.

  “What’s the lander’s status, Mr. Markland?”

  “Monte says he’s ready to lift off at any time.”

  “Is the scope clear?”

  “Yes, sir. No pests in sight.”

  “Very good. Clear the lander for lift.”

  “Aye, aye.”

  The contract to which Shadrack had obligated himself, his ship and his crew was not lucrative, precisely because government contracts in and of themselves never were. But they nearly always covered basic overhead and the payments were guaranteed to appear in the proper account on the specified day. A single unforeseen expense, however, could push the entire endeavor irrevocably into the red.

  Ordinarily secondary contracts and space-available cargo off-set that risk, and if the government job took the ship to exotic locations, as this one did, the opportunity for speculative trade transformed a subsistence contract into a cash cow, a gold mine, or any other euphemism one chose to describe lots and lots of money.

  Unfortunately, the fine print included a clause that gave the government or its agent the authority to dictate if, when, and what side jobs the contracted vessel accepted. And Ambassador Singh, the government agent, had immediately decreed that direct contact or trade between the crew of the Embustero and the inhabitants of the Proxima Cygni system was strictly forbidden.

  The Embustero’s cash cow had turned into a goat rope.

  Three trips to a godforsaken pustule of a system already, and the profit margin was so thin that he had to choose between taking on provisions and paying insurance to keep the books in the black. Fortunately, tonnage fees this trip would get the insurance premiums out of arrears upon the Embustero’s return, and the next run wasn’t scheduled until eighteen months later. They’d have that long to bank enough euros to get them through another painfully unprofitable trip.

  Ambassador Singh called Shadrack to his stateroom for a progress report as soon as the lander delivered him from his meeting with Sodih’s Emir. Shadrack put on his happy face and delivered the news with as much cheerfulness as he could muster.

  “The payload is fully deployed,” Shadrack informed Singh. “All parcels have achieved stable orbit.”

  “Thank you, Captain,” Singh replied. “I’ll need to examine the telemetry reports, of course.”

  White, even teeth appeared within Shadrack’s black beard. “I have them right here.”

  Singh scanned the lines of telemetry carefully while Shadrack waited. The diplomat had flatly rebuffed all inquiries regarding the twenty-six devices now orbiting Sodih in geostationary and polar orbits. “Everything appears to be in order,” Singh said at last. “I would like to get under way as soon as possible.”

  Shadrack’s brow creased. “Might my crew and I not do a bit of business with this Emir of yours? We are ahead of schedule, after all.”

  Singh didn’t attempt to conceal his irritation. “You fully understand the conditions of our contract, Captain. There will be no contact with the inhabitants of Proxima Cygni until I and duly qualified sociological experts deem it necessary and proper.”

  “Very well,” Shadrack returned neutrally. “We break orbit in four hours.”

  “Thank you, Captain,” Singh replied. “For what it’s worth, your cooperation and patience in this matter will not go unrewarded. Trade will commence when the time is right. I hope my assurance of that will please you as much as it did the Emir.”

  “It does indeed, Ambassador.” Shadrack let his disappointment bleed away as he made his way back to the bridge, more pleased by what he’d just learned than the diplomat could know. In Shadrack’s business the least scrap of information could mean the difference between riches and bankruptcy and Singh had unwittingly handed him a shiny nugget.

  Shadrack pondered how best to use it over the next several weeks as Proxima Cygni’s bright disk faded, obscured by the nebular cloud surrounding the system. The penalties for breach of contract were heavy enough to discourage him from attempting to contact the Emir earlier. Now that Singh himself was clearly the primary obstacle to meeting the desires of both parties, Shadrack reconsidered.

  The question was how to go about it.

  Shadrack’s first choice would have been to drop off Singh and return on his own, but Proxima Cygni lay well beyond the fringe of Commonwealth space. Combined with the unusually long transit time between the planet and the nearest reasonably safe jumpzone there was not enough leeway to make a trip before Singh’s next scheduled voyage.

  There was also the matter of the payload he’d just
delivered.

  After twenty years in the Navy Markland knew the dispersal pattern of an orbital defense grid when he saw one. Anything on Sodih worth protecting like that was surely worth a lot—and Shadrack did not doubt that he could offer the planet’s inhabitants more for it through free trade than the Commonwealth.

  “Could the ship’s lander squeeze through after the grid is activated?” Shadrack asked Markland.

  The first mate tilted his head noncommittally. “Depends on the system. Depends on how good the operators are. Depends on how good Monte is.”

  “Assume the operators are competent,” Shadrack surmised. “Assume Monte is adequate. Assume the grid isn’t expected to deal with anything more threatening than those.”

  He pointed at the icons indicating a handful of Kriegfuhrer ships shadowing the Embustero. They were tiny and decidedly low tech compared to Commonwealth vessels, fusion ramjets only capable of operating within the hydrogen rich nebula, but fully capable of intimidating two thirds of Proxima Cygni’s three habitable planets. They’d maintained a cautious distance during this and previous voyages. Shadrack had come to view them as nothing more than an irritation, although how to deal with them had become a sticky subject in Singh’s negotiations with the Emir.

  “You know that happens when you assume,” Markland reminded him.

  “Spare me.”

  The mass proximity detector chimed for attention; the alert blossomed almost immediately into a screeching collision warning. “Captain! Object dead ahead, closing fast!” the helmsman shouted.

  Shadrack read the situation on his screens at a glance and gave his orders before his conscious mind fully understood the implications of what he saw. “Helm, full portside OMS burn! NOW!”

  The massive chemical thrusters on the Embustero’s side lit up an instant later, pushing the freighter off its vector at an angle—directly into the path of a second object.

  “We’re moving too fast!” Markland exclaimed.

  Shadrack had already reached that conclusion. The thick concentration of stellar gas and dust impeded the Embustero’s radar and sensors like fog. The ship’s velocity now outpaced its ability to react.

  “Continue portside OMS burn,” Shadrack ordered. “Full reverse thrust; seal all bulkheads!”

  “Aye, sir!”

  The second object flashed past and yet another appeared in its place. That object, too, missed the Embustero by a narrow margin. Shadrack’s ship rode the razor’s edge of velocity and timing, safe as long as the objects hurtling toward it came at a constant speed and interval.

  But they didn’t.

  The fourth object struck the Embustero head-on. It penetrated the ship’s hull just under deck three and entered the empty forward hold where the metallic mass met full atmospheric resistance and ignited into a flaming sphere prone to aerodynamic influences. It changed direction and curved up through the deck into the aft crew quarters and coldsleep room before punching back through the hull into space.

  Fifteen of the Embustero’s crew died instantly. Twenty more perished of suffocation and decompression sickness as the atmosphere leaked out of damaged compartments. The coldsleep pods not destroyed outright by the projectile began to vent as seals and fittings never designed to endure hard vacuum failed.

  Shadrack lost half his crew in less than three minutes.

  ONE

  Nivia System: 2709:10:24 Standard

  In hindsight, allowing the Embustero’s insurance to expire had been the first of several decisions that seemed reasonable at the time, but had long-reaching consequences and led to circumstances demanding choices between even less palatable options.

  Ambassador Singh exercised the Commonwealth’s option to terminate the ship’s contract when the time came for his fourth voyage to Proxima Cygni and he found the Embustero still undergoing repairs in the shipyards at Spencer.

  Shadrack’s line of credit at the yard was based almost entirely on possession of the contract, and he chose to brazen it out rather than admit bankruptcy and walk away from a nearly refitted vessel. Getting his ship released from the docks demanded outright forgery, a transgression that convinced nearly a dozen of his surviving and heretofore loyal crewmen to jump ship rather than be caught up in the criminal proceedings sure to follow.

  Shadrack had his ship, a meager remnant of a crew far more loyal than they should have been, and absolutely nowhere to go that his creditors and their lawyers couldn’t pursue him. It was at that point that he abandoned all pretense of legitimacy. All it took was a bit more forgery and administrative slight-of-hand to create the persona of the Ladybird, the alias they’d operated under ever since.

  Starting fresh turned out to be more difficult than he expected, however. A ship of the Embustero’s tonnage couldn’t simply change her registration and continue to operate in her old venue. She was forced to shift to the periphery of the Commonwealth where profitable opportunities for a freighter of her size were already exploited by others. It took years of scraping, the slow compromise of any remaining integrity, and the loss of another handful of crew before she finally found a niche that was, if not lucrative, at least stable.

  “When are we scheduled to dump our garbage, Mr. Markland?”

  The first mate checked his screen. “We’ll enter the window in thirty minutes,” he replied.

  “Very well,” Shadrack said as he jacked into his station. “Get a team down to the forward hold on the double.” Markland relayed the order while Shadrack brought up the surveillance cameras. He glowered at the neatly netted stacks of containers, every blessed kilogram representing lost profit.

  Regulations driven by Nivia’s fanatic environmentalism required every vessel moving cargo through Nivia Station to take on a load of hazardous waste equal to ten percent of the mass of the cargo itself. Furthermore, ships carrying such waste were required to depart the planet along a course guaranteed to carry the undesired material to a fiery death in the system’s sun. That course rarely coincided with the optimal tack for the Embustero’s intended port of call.

  Shadrack settled his headset and keyed his microphone. “Navigation, display traffic and hazards.”

  “Aye, sir.” His monitor switched to the Embustero’s programmed course. Shadrack’s ship showed as a white dot. Traffic ahead of and behind him showed yellow. Clusters of jettisoned waste, marked with red icons, marched sunward like a string of rubies.

  “Navigation, will we require any course corrections to jettison?”

  “Negative, sir. We are in the groove.”

  “Load team is authorized to proceed,” Shadrack told Markland.

  Crewmen swarmed through the hold as he watched, disconnecting cargo nets and straps. That much loose mass was enough to give any spacer the willies. Not only was it inherently dangerous for the crewmen working around it, a sudden change of course or delta-v could send it clean through the side of the ship.

  “Loadmaster reports forward hold clear and ready,” Markland reported.

  “Helm, make our delta-v zero,” Shadrack ordered. The Embustero’s engines died. “Depressurize forward hold.”

  “Aye, sir.” This was the messy part; as the atmospheric pressure in the hold dropped, the containers inside vented gas and liquid through the slightest flaw in their seals. Inevitably a dozen or more failed completely and sprayed their contents over the deck and bulkheads as they exploded. Apparently Nivian regulations regarding hazardous waste took a back seat to thrift once it was off their hands.

  “Hold pressure at zero atmospheres.”

  “Open us up.”

  “Aye, sir.” The clamshell doors in the Embustero’s nose spread slowly, exposing the forward hold to hard vacuum. A stack toppled when a container within exploded. A half-dozen of the fallen containers began to void themselves through damaged seals. The Embustero had learned the hard way to maintain the hold’s gravity field during the process and avoid the mayhem of leaking containers propelling themselves randomly about.

 
“Forward hold open and ready, sir.”

  “Reverse engines one-quarter G one minute from my mark…mark.”

  “Fifty-nine seconds and counting.”

  “Mr. Markland, sound collision.”

  “Sound collision, aye!” The claxon began to howl through the ship.

  “Forty seconds and counting.”

  “All sections report rigged for collision,” Markland reported.

  “Thank you. Check your restraints, ladies and gentlemen,” Shadrack reminded the bridge crew.

  “Five seconds…four…three…two…one…”

  The ship lurched as the reverse thrusters fired. Shadrack’s restraints bit into his shoulders. The containers in the hold shot forward, their own inertia carrying them out of the Embustero’s belly. Free of the Embustero’s artificial gravity field, the venting canisters began to spin wildly.

  “Button us up and pressurize,” Shadrack ordered. “Sweep the hold for hazards and have second watch get that mess cleaned up.”

  With the compulsory trash run out of the way, it was time to deal with another, equally irritating matter: the dirtsider his crewmen had encountered on Nivia while poaching in the Great Northern Preserve and brought back with them. The young man had arrived in grave condition, suffering from frostbite and near total respiratory failure due to pneumonia, and it seemed likely that the problem would solve itself. Megan Druski’s medical skills proved equal to the task, however, and he’d recovered nicely in the intervening weeks—nicely enough to express profound dissatisfaction with his continuing confinement.

  It remained to be seen if he fully appreciated his predicament and the potential consequences for both himself and the spacers who’d rescued him. Shadrack had some confidence that the dirtsider would prove reasonable and discrete—the crew that found him indicated that he didn’t seem to share his fellow citizens’ fanatic revulsion of poaching, and was willing enough to guide them out of the mountains when it appeared certain that they’d all fall victims of Nivia’s deadly environmental laws.

 

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