“One night some jack hired two of us. After he left we just lay there and hung on to each other. It was the first time I think I ever felt like I wasn’t completely alone.” Her breathing evened out to a slow, deep rhythm. “We got a place together, watched each other’s backs, worked together quite a bit because it was safer that way. But we caught something, too. One day we were fine, the next we could hardly stand up. She was worse off than me, so I tried to get to a clinic. I passed out on the way and woke up on the Embustero. Meg shot me full of antibiotics and put me in the atmosphere chamber for a week.
“I always wondered what happened to her; what she thought when I never came back.”
“You didn’t do anything wrong,” Terson told her.
“I lived, didn’t I?”
NINETEEN
Assend: 2710:06:32 Standard
Assend’s sickly yellow shine reminded Shadrack of the jaundiced pallor of drunks slumped in the alleyways of every starport, life poisoned by drink, bad decisions or bad luck. It was a flawed jewel—not prized, but useful to mankind as most planets were not.
Though unbreathable, its thin atmosphere contained no particularly deadly gasses. There was no plant life, only a trace of water and the temperature swung wildly between night and day. Still, the fact that humans didn’t require pressure suits or elaborate life support systems made it physically tolerable and economically attractive. The overhead required to maintain an infrastructure was considerably lower than required for an orbital habitat and allowed a wide margin for error—minor mistakes and accidents didn’t mean certain death. Assend might have become a major colony if not for its unfortunate location.
The system lay in the center of a no man’s land between the Commonwealth and the Terran Deadworlds. Neither government wanted it; neither government would allow the other to establish a strong presence. The result was a haven for pirates, scofflaws and illicit trade. The violence and intrigue that occurred daily on Assend provided grist for hundreds of pulp novelists and vid-makers and the real thing was no less dangerous for the foolish or incautious. Every fortune made at Assend was matched by one lost.
Well over a dozen major ports dotted the planet’s equatorial zone, each port a city-state unto itself, as different from the others as any nation could be. They represented a microcosm of known space and the fierce competition resulting from animosities of faith, philosophy and economics. Skirmishes between the ports were common and so were casualties among ships like the Embustero caught in the crossfire.
The only news available was anecdotal and deciding which port to patronize occupied most of Shadrack’s waking hours during the long approach. He gleaned as much information as possible from every departing vessel willing to talk, sifted through rumors, facts and outright lies.
Some destinations were simply out of the question. Porte Liberte, for example, was controlled by Neo-Templars and friendly to myriad extremist groups intent on reclaiming Earth from the Demon Hordes. Anyone with weapons could find eager buyers there, as well as fevered sermons, paramilitary training camps and hundreds of wild-eyed fanatics eager to throw their lives away in Crusade, Jihad, or whatever term one put to their frequent campaigns into the Deadworlds.
A number of ports acted as home base for bands of pirates and privateers. Some were primarily Terran and preyed on Commonwealth shipping; an equal number were sympathetic to the Commonwealth and preyed on Terran shipping. Both governments condemned piracy in any form but neither seemed interested in curbing those pirates that restricted their activities to the other’s territory.
The remaining ports claimed neutrality, acting as clearinghouses for cargo and salvage without concern for the species, origin or political leaning of their clients. They carried the atmosphere of a perpetual swap meet and a man had to keep his hand on his currency at all times.
Eventually it came down to three equally attractive options. The final choice depended on what happened when the Embustero ran the gauntlet.
Shadrack studied the tactical display Markland prepared. Clusters of ships orbited the planet at varying distances. Several were color-coded to associate them with the ports that controlled them. Most were grayed-out unknowns, uncommunicative and mysterious. There wasn’t anything resembling space traffic control or spaceport approach. Oaths and threats in a dozen languages filled the com as ships jockeyed for position.
Scavengers and gangs too weak to maintain a foothold on the planet plied their own trade beyond the boundary of the ports’ power. A ship carrying cargo of sufficient value could expect a certain amount of assistance from its destination port. An unarmed freighter, especially one that had not declared its destination, made a tempting target. The Embustero had already received offers of protection from the outlying gangs. Some were genuine, some outright extortion. Shadrack ignored both. The situation called for attitude; implied strength was just as good as the real thing.
But the nearer the Embustero came the more attention she received.
“Who’s at helm?” Shadrack asked Markland as they began their final approach.
“Pelletier’s front seat,” the first mate replied. “Figenshaw’s backing him up.”
An inexperienced hand on the wheel gave Shadrack pause but he knew Figenshaw would intervene instantly if something went wrong. “Take us in, Mr. Pelletier,” the captain said over the command net. “Act like we own the place.”
“Pick a line and stick to it,” Figenshaw advised her student. “We’re big enough to intimidate most of them.”
“I know the game,” Pelletier assured her.
The Embustero moved toward the planet with every light on her hull blazing. Shadrack listened to a new barrage of warnings and threats aimed at the freighter but didn’t respond. The scavenger vessels gave way grudgingly. The Embustero’s sheer mass was weapon enough for them, but half a dozen others banded together and moved in to cut off the freighter’s approach.
“Orders?” Pelletier asked via the command net.
“Your judgment,” Shadrack replied.
“Aye, sir.” Pelletier keyed up the ship’s all-call. “All hands: secure stations. Maneuvers will commence without warning.”
“You want me to take over?” Figenshaw asked.
“No, ma’am.” The noose began to tighten; the ship directly in the freighter’s path slowed suddenly, trying to force the freighter to heave to.
Pelletier throttled the Embustero’s engines up to eighty percent.
Although heavily armed, the opposing captains’ first instinct was to protect their vessels. They scattered like frightened fish as the huge cargo ship bore down on them. Shadrack scanned the location of ships affiliated with ports on the surface in the seconds it took the gang to regroup and picked the one with vessels in the best position to cut off pursuit.
“Assend, this is Ladybird,” Shadrack transmitted. “Our destination is Poole’s Landing.”
A few minutes later a pair of armed interceptors from the port fell in beside the Embustero and escorted her on to Assend.
The Embustero began to arrange the disposition of her cargo before she entered orbit. A handful of the crew was relieved of secondary duties in order to devote their entire attention to business, but Shadrack held himself aloof. Not all merchants were captains and not all captains were merchants. Shadrack reviewed every deal and transaction as the Embustero’s final authority in all matters but rarely countermanded the arrangements made by those he deemed capable of such decisions.
At present the freighter’s physical condition was as worrisome as her financial dealings, and it was the captain’s responsibility to determine policy and give direction on those matters. Neuchterlien presented him with a wish list and Shadrack read over it carefully, moving some items to the bottom and others to the top.
The subject of coldsleep pods gave him pause. They weren’t critical to operations, but could be had at bargain prices now compared to buying them new later. They were also handy for medical purposes if someo
ne received an injury Druski couldn’t treat and, of course, it might help calm things down if certain crewmen—Grogan, for instance—got bottled during jump.
He cut the number to five and moved the acquisition up a few notches in priority, then gave the audited list back to the engineer. “How long?” Shadrack asked.
“Depends,” Neuchterlien shrugged. “We need heavy equipment to do it right. We’ll have to see what’s available and how much it costs. Work itself’ll go pretty quick as long as it stays cosmetic. Take quite a while if we start monkeying with the internal structure.”
“MacLeod been any help?”
“Yessir. He’s a filthy little man, but he knows his business.”
Shadrack cared less about the man’s hygiene than the quality of his work. “Keep me informed.”
None of the factions that occupied the planet had ever managed to put a station in orbit: the unstable paramilitary/political environment made the capital investment necessary to construct one far too risky. Most large cargo vessels did not possess the ability to raise or land cargo in a deep gravity well, and the ports turned the lack of permanent orbital facilities to their advantage.
Without exception the local shuttle services were wholly owned and operated by the ports and were happy to accept a percentage of cargo in lieu of cash. The Embustero’s lander made it possible to avoid such disbursements and getting it flight worthy was a top priority from the moment the freighter entered orbit. Neuchterlien and his people repaired the battle damage as best they could, but lacked the necessary materials and expertise in certain areas. The facilities to complete the repairs existed on Assend but they had to get the lander to the surface, first.
Figenshaw programmed the lander’s simulator to recreate the gravity, atmosphere and weather of Assend. Neuchterlien added the degradation caused by the residual damage and Terson spent several hours practicing the techniques necessary to get to the surface in one piece. Figenshaw approached him afterward with a request to sit the copilot position for a session or two and, if he approved, accompany him on the actual flight.
“So, the master is now the student,” Terson teased.
“Hey, I’ve got less than fifty hours of atmosphere time,” she replied, “none of it this thick. I don’t get a chance like this very often.”
“Don’t you ever fly with Grogan?”
“That asshole is a hack,” she informed him. “He’s capable enough to monitor the autopilot and make minor course adjustments, but put any real pressure on him and he folds. Not to mention the fact that he’s got a real problem with women.”
It wasn’t until he ran the simulations with Figenshaw that Terson realized how much he took his atmospheric flight experience for granted. Most career spacers never encountered atmosphere thicker than one-tenth Standard, and that rarely. The deep gravity wells that made high-pressure atmosphere possible were considered hazards to be avoided at all costs.
Even those with reasonably extensive experience weren’t exactly proficient and, though it galled them to admit it, dirtside pilots had an easier time adjusting to spaceflight than spacers did learning to fly in atmosphere.
The landing party mustered in the commons with the rest of the crew for the mission brief the next morning: Terson and Figenshaw to pilot, Markland and Liz to finalize arrangements for storage and lodging, Grogan, O’Brien and Mackey to operate the cargo sled, Cormack MacLeod and Neuchterlien to oversee repair of the lander and make arrangements for work to begin on the Embustero.
The discordant babble of voices reverberating through the commons died down when Shadrack entered. “We’ll begin unloading in a few hours,” he said. “I don’t need to remind you all that Assend’s reputation is deserved, so those of you assigned to the surface will be issued weapons. We’re sitting ducks here and on the ground so I expect every one of you to be alert. Everything is by the book—everything.
“The warehouse we rented isn’t much more than a windbreak. It’s not hardened, heated or pressurized. Nothing leaves that warehouse without the express sanction of Markland, Colvard or myself. We’re amateurs compared to the con men on this planet—remember that.
“Questions?”
“What do we do if something, you know—goes wrong?” Lytle asked nervously.
“We aren’t likely to run into anything up here,” Shadrack said. “The folks who run Assend don’t like trouble where it’s visible. The surface is another matter. The ground crew will be an even mix of the poaching party and the rest of you. O’Brien and Grogan run that show and we’ve already seen that they can handle a situation.
“Pelletier will fly the lander; first load down will be the cargo sled. Loaders and guards will swap duties every six hours and the lander will ferry down a complete crew change every twelve hours. Markland and Colvard have the schedule.
“If there’s nothing else, Doc will brief you on conditions planet-side.”
“Surface pressure and gravity are both Standard,” Druski said. “The atmosphere is about fifty-fifty nitrogen and carbon dioxide. You won’t need pressure suits or self-contained breathing units but you must carry supplemental oxygen.”
The medic slipped on a full-face mask connected by a dual tube to an apparatus strapped to her waist. “This is a combination rebreather and oxygen generator. Aside from recovering the oxygen you exhale, it strips a molecule of oxygen off the CO2 it pulls from the atmosphere and exhausts carbon monoxide. There’s also a reserve oxygen bottle that should last about three hours—less if you exert yourself.
“The thing to remember is this: you can’t use one indefinitely in enclosed spaces. Once all the carbon di-oxide available converts to carbon mon-oxide there’s nothing left to process—it will switch to the backup supply automatically and when that’s gone you’re dead.” She removed the mask and cast a severe gaze around the room to make sure everyone got the point.
“Keep an eye on each other; work and travel in pairs at all times. If you get short of breath or start to hyperventilate let your partner know. If you lose your mask or have to buddy-breathe hold your breath and do not inhale raw air. The atmospheric gasses will actually displace the oxygen in your blood and you’ll pass out that much faster.
“The temperature gets as high as forty degrees Celsius at mid-day and drops to almost thirty degrees below zero at night. The air contains no moisture to speak of so drink plenty of water no matter how cool you feel.
“As far as I know there are no native bugs capable of harming humans. That said, there aren’t any decontamination protocols, and the place will be crawling with imported diseases I can’t begin to imagine. Our vaccinations are up to date, but I want any illness or injury reported immediately. If any of you have the opportunity to get intimate with anyone dirtside, and are so inclined, I recommend that you reconsider—strange cock and pussy aren’t worth the nasty gifts you may bring back, and some are incurable.
“I have a supply of prophylactics available for those who plan to ignore my advice.”
“Aye,” MacLeod called from the back of the room, “I’ll have me a box!”
No mere human possessed the perception or reflexes necessary to hold the lander on the precise, unforgiving course that allowed an object to penetrate the atmosphere without burning up or tumbling back into space. The first stage of reentry was totally computer-controlled, giving Terson ample time to observe the pale, dirty yellow orb looming below.
He’d seen more attractive planets. While Algran Asta shined like an emerald and Nivia like a sapphire, Assend looked exactly like what it was—a big dusty rock. The dreary monotony of its surface stretched over the horizon, unbroken except for a meager cap of frozen carbon dioxide doped with water ice that gleamed in the sunlight.
The planet’s more impressive characteristic was the ferocity of the weather when convection kicked up winds so fierce that they smothered the globe with dust and sand, bringing all activity to a halt for weeks at a time. Assend was on its way to apogee now, the winter side of i
ts elliptical orbit, and the great storms were subsiding.
Figenshaw turned green a few minutes after they reached the outer layers of atmosphere and dipped her chin to use the puke-tube in her helmet. Terson felt queasy himself after weeks of the Embustero’s well-regulated artificial gravity. His copilot closed her eyes, hands clamped rigidly on her armrests as the turbulence increased. Terson’s anxiety rose as well but for a different reason.
The reentry vehicles he’d trained in were far less sophisticated than the Embustero’s lander, even taking into account the degraded and inoperable peripheral systems. Its lifting-body design made it an inherently stable aircraft in heavy atmosphere, but it still had to contend with friction and the accompanying light show. Under normal circumstances Terson wouldn’t give a second thought to the tongues of plasma flickering up from the lander’s belly like the flame of a giant blowtorch, but the stringer’s attack had damaged the heat shielding that lined the craft’s anterior surface. Neuchterlien filled the pits and scratches with an ablative patching caulk, but a single, untreated nick could develop a fatal hot spot in seconds.
“This is supposed to happen, right?” Figenshaw asked in a clipped tone. “It’s normal, isn’t it?”
“Absolutely,” Terson replied easily.
The lander emerged from reentry communications blackout a few hundred kilometers from Poole’s Landing. “We’ve got company,” Lita warned. A pair of armed aerospace fighters fell alongside the lander. The hair stood up on the back of Terson’s neck at the sight. The craft to port came close enough for the pilot to hand-sign a frequency.
“Frequency set,” Terson called out. “How do you hear?”
“Loud and clear. Set transponder to squawk five-four-seven-five. Your call sign is Cargo Three-one-seven. Maintain present speed and heading.”
“Roger, escort. Squawking five-four-seven-five.” The fighters slid slowly around the lander a few times without comment, leaving Terson to wonder what exactly they were looking for and what they’d do if they found it. Whatever they saw satisfied them.
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