Terson looked forward to taking the hot seat when they dropped for the second time, but Figenshaw disappointed him. “I think you can handle it,” she said, “but Shadrack’s been twitchy since we came across that Navy cruiser. You can still observe.”
“That’s worse than the simulator,” Terson groused.
“I might be able to talk him into letting us run tandem,” she offered, “but you have to promise to do what I tell you; no backtalk whatsoever!”
Terson promised, and his controls were hot when he suited up again. Figenshaw let him run the checklist in preparation for the drop, but took back control as Systems began the countdown.
“…three…two…one…drop!”
A wave of nausea coursed through Terson’s stomach as stars appeared on one of his auxiliary monitors. The command net filled with chatter as each section ran its post-drop checks. This time Navigation didn’t spot the second ship for nearly fifteen seconds.
“Nav to Command—unidentified vessel ninety degrees to port, range five thousand kilometers, closing fast!”
Shadrack cursed his misfortune. The Embustero was running without an active transponder; he didn’t expect the Navy to let him pass with nothing more than a perfunctory check this time. “Interrogate him,” Shadrack directed. If the Embustero followed normal procedures and played dumb he might talk his way out of a citation.
“Systems to Command. Sir, his transponder won’t reply but I am picking up some heavy electromagnetic interference on our—“
“Shit!” Markland exclaimed. “Helm, hard roll to starboard, get our belly toward him! All ahead full and sound collision!”
“Markland!” Shadrack bellowed, “What are you doing?”
“That’s a railgun emission!” the first mate shouted back. “We’re under attack!”
Terson fought to seat his helmet while the collision alarm wailed in his ears. The indicators displaying the Embustero’s attitude flashed and scrolled as Figenshaw put the big ship into a barrel roll. His audio feed went dead and he realized that he was still wearing his communications headset; the helmet couldn’t seal with the cord in the way. He ripped the headset off and slammed his helmet down. The seal engaged with an audible click. He patched his helmet audio into the console in place of the headset and the babble of voices returned.
“—ser me, God damn you! Pelletier! Are you listening?”
“I hear you,” he snapped back.
“The shit’s gonna hit the fan in about fifteen seconds,” Figenshaw said. “You’ll have to help me maneuver. You handle the throttle and OMS. I’ll do everything else. Got it?”
“Got it.”
“Hang on!”
The Embustero bucked hard, throwing Terson against his straps. The ship shivered under an onslaught of multiple impacts, then the power went out, plunging him into darkness and silence.
Markland’s hands clamped onto his armrests while vibrations rattled around him in the darkness. Something oscillated along the ship’s skin, amidships to stern, like a huge marble rumbling around the inside of a tin can. His instrument panel flickered back on for a heartbeat, faulted out, and came back to life. His board looked like a Christmas tree that favored red. “Sections, report!”
“Nav on…Systems on…Engineering on…” Nothing from Shadrack or the helm.
“Nav, where’s he at?”
“Passing toward our rear quarter, sir, perpendicular to our course.”
“Figenshaw, if you can hear me, pitch the nose down! We have to keep our belly to him!”
“Helm to Command, can you hear me now?”
“Yes! Get the nose down, damnit! He’ll reorient on us as he passes!”
“My position is dead,” Figenshaw reported. “Only thing I’ve got is audio.”
“Pelletier here,” another voice cracked. “I’ve got partial, intermittent control. Try patching around the master helm position.”
“Nuke, you catch that?” Markland called out.
“Aye, aye. Thirty seconds.”
“Lita, trade places with Pelt.”
“No can do—my servos are dead; I’ll have to pump the shell open manually.”
“Get going, then!” Whatever control Pelletier had was enough to get the nose started down, but was the rate of pitch in sync with the bandit’s angle of attack? Markland had to assume otherwise. He patched into the ship’s PA: “All hands, all hands, take shelter in designated hard points immediately. Repeat, take shelter in hard points. Colvard, grab Johansson and get your asses up here, ASAP!”
“Helm to Command, I’ve got full control—stand by for hard OMS burn.”
“Roger that, Pelt. Keep our belly to him as he sweeps past; he’ll alter his delta-v to throw you off.”
“Roger. I’m getting good feed from Navigation.”
Damn. Kid sounds calmer than I feel. The immediate danger to the ship was as low as it could be, considering. The bandit’s weaponry would have to pound through the Embustero’s holds and contents, then penetrate the reinforced bulkheads between the holds and deck three to do any significant damage. The first mate turned his attention to the next priority.
“Nav, plot a jump back to our previous navpoint.”
“Wilco, sir, but my board indicates jump system is down.”
“Engineering, status of jump and propulsion systems.”
“OMS is fully operational,” Neuchterlien responded. “Jump system and fusion reactor sustained collateral damage; I think a projectile bounced around between the hulls. Numerous subsystems are experiencing electrical problems.”
“How long to repair the reactor?”
“No way to tell until I can do a physical evaluation.”
“That’s your priority until further notice. Nav, where’s our bandit?”
“Just passing us. He’s pouring on delta-v to slow down. I got good visuals on him as he went by.”
“Keep an eye out for another ship,” Markland advised. The Embustero’s adversary was beginning to sound like a stringer.
“Aye, aye.”
Colvard and the second watch helmsman arrived on the bridge. Markland briefed Colvard on the situation before relinquishing command while Johansson relieved Pelletier. When he finished he found Pelletier already trying to open Shadrack’s shell.
“Over here,” Markland said. Each bridge position contained a manual hydraulic system to open the shells if primary power failed. There were two pump handles for each, one inside and one outside, but the process was slow and exhausting. Both Shadrack and Figenshaw’s shells were open a centimeter or two. Markland removed an access panel on the back of Shadrack’s station and threw his weight on the pump handle.
“Let me,” Pelletier said. The younger man sat down facing the panel, one foot on either side of the opening, knees bent forty-five degrees. He heaved on the handle as if he were rowing a boat, using his entire upper body to move the lever.
Markland opened the panel behind Figenshaw’s pod and emulated Pelletier. The long-unused lever was so stiff he thought his arms were going to come out of their sockets. His chest burned from the exertion after less than a minute. Pelletier tapped him on the helmet and motioned him away. He turned to find Shadrack squeezing through the opening. The Embustero’s captain doffed his helmet and the first mate followed suit.
“What’s our status, Mr. Markland?”
The first mate outlined their predicament quickly. Shadrack had Navigation display the images they’d taken of their attacker on one of the bridge monitors. Under careful scrutiny the vessel did not turn out to be as formidable as its size suggested. It looked like an aggregate of wildly divergent technology clinging to a spindly support frame. Most of the vessel was open to space, allowing a clear view of the internal structure.
“That apparatus on the nose looks like a ramjet intake,” Markland said, “but the fusion chamber is in the wrong place. This is the railgun, and these tanks arrayed around the tail would have to be fuel.”
“Control module an
d crew quarters,” Shadrack surmised of another structure. “This long, empty section here is a bit of a puzzle. Strangest thing I’ve ever seen.”
“But not big enough to take on a significant amount of cargo,” Markland said. “It must be a stringer.”
Shadrack frowned and pulled at his chin. Stringers and baffle-riders shared many traits, from the contempt in which they were held by other spacers to their reputations as troublemakers and thieves. Most people held the view that a stringer was nothing more than a baffle-rider with his own jump drive, but experienced long-haul spacers knew that nothing was farther from the truth.
Stringing and piracy went hand in hand. By legal definitions a stringer was a pirate, but call a pirate a stringer to his face and you’d find yourself with even more trouble on your plate. A stringer was to piracy what a poacher was to hunting—at least from a pirate’s point of view.
Even a poor pirate had a lot invested in his ship and crew, and therefore had a lot to lose. A pirate ship could not sustain itself on its victims indefinitely; it required safe harbor for repair, resupply and an outlet for its ill-gotten gain, eventually. A pirate might loot a passenger vessel, take a few hostages, perhaps even conscript legitimate spacers if he was shorthanded, but it was a rare pirate who was willing to risk his support system and bring the wrath of the Commonwealth Navy on his head by committing wholesale slaughter.
In most cases a pirate never had to fire a shot and the victim was allowed to go on its way, poorer for the encounter but otherwise unscathed.
Stringers, on the other hand, could not present themselves as a viable threat; they possessed neither the size nor the armament to coerce a ship of the Embustero’s size to heave to voluntarily. A stringer was no match for a worthwhile victim in terms of speed and the ships did not carry a crew large enough to carry out a boarding even if they did manage to run down their quarry.
They compensated for those inadequacies with surprise, deception and unfettered viciousness, attacking without regard for loss of life. Their only aim was to hamstring their victim as quickly and with as little risk to themselves as possible. Afterward they took what little they could and left the derelict adrift, taking additional profit by selling the location to pirates or unscrupulous salvage operators.
Stringers did not have the resources or inclination to care for prisoners. The crew that surrendered itself and its passengers to such predators faced unimaginable depravities and certain death at their hands.
Markland’s quick action saved the Embustero from immediate destruction, but the battle was far from over. The stringer could harry the freighter for days, even weeks if necessary, inflicting light damage from a distance that would eventually cripple them. The Embustero wouldn’t survive that long if they couldn’t get the engines going.
“We’re in trouble, Mr. Markland,” Shadrack said gravely. “What’s your recommendation?”
“He doesn’t have much more engine capacity than our ship’s launch,” the first mate replied. “We’d be evenly matched with the exception of armament, but he won’t know that. A feint might run him off or distract him, give Nuke time to get our legs back. If all else fails I’ll ram the fucker.”
“We’ve got the personnel and hardware to board him,” Shadrack offered.
Markland shook his head. “By the time we snuck up on him the rest of you would be dead. My way is the only way.”
“I need your expertise here,” Shadrack insisted. “Send someone else!”
“I’m the only one with combat experience,” Markland said evenly.
“No,” Pelletier said softly behind them, “you’re not.”
SIXTEEN
The Embustero: 2710:05:19 Standard
“I don’t want you going off with any illusions about what you’re getting into,” Markland told Terson as they made their way through corridors full of crewmen hurrying to make vital repairs. “The Embustero will jump at our first opportunity. We’ll come back for you when we can—if we can—but you’ll be on your own until then.”
“That’s nothing new,” Terson replied. He considered un-volunteering; the realization that success would leave him stranded in the vicinity of a well-armed, pissed-off pirate cooled his enthusiasm considerably, but Markland would certainly go if he didn’t and the freighter stood little chance without the first mate.
“I’ll feed you intercept and evasion solutions from the Embustero’s computers for as long as I can,” Markland continued. “Once you engage you’ll have to fly by the seat of your pants.
“Don’t take any unnecessary risks; the longer you keep their attention the better our chances become. But if you have the opportunity to take them out…” The first mate paused outside a maintenance bay. “I’m not trying to convince you to suicide, but in the long run your chances of surviving are higher if you take them out while we’re still here to rescue you.”
“They can’t open the launch bay doors from the bridge,” said Momar Massoud, the first watch journeyman Neuchterlein assigned to oversee the launch of the Embustero’s lander. “We don’t know if the problem is loss of power or a severed control circuit. If it’s a control circuit I can open the doors once we’re there. If it’s power, I’ll have to blow them.”
He walked among the crewmen assembled in the maintenance bay handing out the explosive squibs necessary to force the doors. Massoud impressed on everyone the importance of handling them per his strict instructions least they reach Paradise ahead of schedule.
Massoud checked everyone’s suit before leading them through the access hatch into the void between the inner and outer hull. Terson experienced some discomfort as he stepped onto the catwalk outside the hatch. The magnetic soles of his boots gripped the surface tightly and he concentrated on planting and releasing each foot in turn to distract himself from the sensation of weightlessness. Someone began to wretch but had the presence of mind to mute their microphone before the reaction spread.
The catwalk ended at a mesh gate. Massoud pushed it aside and motioned them into the bed of a self-propelled trolley. Jerrell Mackey caught Terson’s attention while they waited their turn, motioning him to cut off his transmitter, and they touched helmets.
“How you doing?” Mackey grinned.
“Okay. You?”
“I crewed a weightless scow for over a year,” he said. “It’s like riding a bike. That big fellow up ahead is Grogan. He’s the one who puked.”
The line moved ahead before Terson could ask the significance of the revelation. Was it simply gossip, or a tacit warning to watch his back? Grogan hadn’t spoken to him since his promotion party and Terson was content to let it stay that way.
They strapped themselves into folding benches on the trolley’s bed. The vehicle clung to tracks protruding from each bulkhead. Three pairs of wheels gripped the top and bottom of each track, doubling as bearings and direct drive. Massoud took the controls and they accelerated smoothly to five or ten kilometers an hour.
A thick lining of ballistic fabric covered the walls, making them featureless with the exception of the track and a few conduits leading to various sensors, antenna and utility couplings. The standard hardening was sufficient to contain splatter from light orbital debris that might penetrate the outer hull, but useless against weapons-grade projectiles. Shrapnel had scored the material here and there, exposing the radiation barrier beneath.
They passed junctions that allowed the trolley to move higher or lower along the Embustero’s hull as they moved aft. The launch bay lay nestled between the Embustero’s main engines, making the most efficient use of space that was otherwise too dangerous for cargo or personnel, although the lander could not dock or depart while the freighter was under thrust.
Massoud parked the trolley at another catwalk in the stern and the crew disembarked. The journeyman took all but Terson and Mackey back inside the main hull.
“This way,” Mackey motioned. They followed the catwalk a few meters to another hatch. Mackey pulled it open, and Te
rson’s stomach turned over.
The top of the Embustero’s lander lay on the other side, no more than ten meters away. The sight contradicted Terson’s visual perspective, which insisted that the surface his feet rested on was properly aligned with the starship’s “up” and “down.” In fact, he stood parallel to the ship’s horizontal axis. The wall on his right side was, in reality, the dorsal surface of the ship’s inner hull and his head was pointed toward the Embustero’s bow.
“Look at me,” Mackey ordered, drawing Terson’s attention away from the visual paradox. “Look at me; it’ll pass.”
Terson inhaled deeply and the nausea faded. “You think I’d be used to this shit by now,” he said.
“You aren’t doing bad for a groundhog,” Mackey grinned. He clipped one end of a line to a stanchion opposite the open hatch and fired a magnetic grapple at the lander with a puff of compressed nitrogen. The grapple set solidly and he pulled back the slack, tying it off at the stanchion. “I’ll hold onto you,” the spacer said. “Now pull both feet off the deck; there you go. Clip this line onto your suit—okay. Hand over hand, now. I’ll pull you back if you get in trouble.”
Terson crossed the span with no problem, rotating his body a few meters before he arrived to absorb the impact with his legs. He unclipped from the safety line and tugged the grapple loose so Mackey could pull them back.
“I’m good from here,” Terson assured him.
“Roger that. And Joey—good luck.”
Terson threw him a thumbs-up and walked along the launch’s hull to the top access hatch. The lock cycled and he descended into the craft’s cockpit. He strapped into the pilot’s seat and plugged into the lander’s com system. “Lander to Command, how do you hear me?”
“Loud and clear, Pelletier,” Markland replied. “Massoud says he’s got power. He’ll open the bay door and release the gantry as soon as you’re ready.”
Embustero- Pale Boundaries Page 22