by Richard Fox
“Remember the protocols.” The Genevan got out of the car before it rolled to a stop. A throng of people, their skin tones running a different spectrum than the generally darker complexion of the Indus, stood just beyond a single line of local soldiers.
Gage steadied himself, then got out as Thorvald opened the door for him. A wave of questions and shouts met him, and Gage’s heart broke as he heard so many familiar accents. One set of parents held up a squalling infant, the father waving frantically at Gage.
Gage put one hand on the engine compartment of the car and vaulted onto the hood, his boot heels denting the metal.
“Stop!” Gage held up the hilt of his sword. “Stop,” he repeated louder and the din died down. He looked over the faces in the crowd, a knot forming in his chest.
“I am Commodore Thomas Gage, Commander of the 11th Fleet,” he said. “What you’ve heard of Albion, that the Daegon attacked without cause or mercy, that they took the planet and the colonies…is true.”
A wail started in the crowd.
“I have no specific information about your loved ones back home, forgive me. The 11th Fleet, and all of you on New Madras and the rest of our countrymen across settled space…we are the light. We are what remains free. And while just one of us is alive, Albion will not die. We must fight on until we stand on free Albion soil and look to skies that belong only to us. This was the first promise of King George when he founded the Kingdom and, as Regent, that promise lives on.”
“Get us out of here!” someone shouted.
“I have warships in orbit,” Gage said, shaking his head, “not colony ships or passenger liners. You are safer here, on New Madras. Stay here and keep the light burning. I will fight to keep you alive. I will not stop until we can return home, but for now I need you all here.”
“What of King Randolph? Prince Jarred?” came from the crowd.
“Dead.” Gage swallowed hard. “But the royal family still lives and I serve as Regent.”
“Who put you in charge?” asked a heavyset man in the back.
“King Randolph’s succession plan is part of the Genevan oaths.” Gage pointed to Thorvald. “If I am wrong to take on the mantle of Regent, than he will treat me as a threat to the Crown. And if I am a threat to the Crown?”
Thorvald mimed crushing a skull.
“And I couldn’t stop him if I tried,” Gage said. “Regent or not, I am in command of the 11th Fleet. The Emergency Decrees are in effect. Those of you with prior military service will be brought back into uniform to—”
Thorvald’s head cocked to one side and he swung around to face Gage. He motioned for Gage to lean down, then whispered into his ear.
Gage stood and buckled his sword belt around his waist.
“To the shelters,” he told the crowd. “All of you get to the shelters. Now.”
CHAPTER 8
Gage stepped onto the Orion’s bridge, one hand zipping up the side of his vac suit as he hopped up onto the command dais. Price was there, her helmet perched on the command console.
“Any change?” he asked.
“Negative, sir,” she said, “which bothers me more than anything. Fifty minutes ago there was an Ashtekar spike at a Lagrange point near Isana, the outer moon. The slip-space disturbance indicated a translation mass equivalent to most of our fleet, but nothing’s appeared on the scopes.”
“Has astrogation run a back trace on the slip signature?” Gage touched the side of his collar and the vac suit tightened slightly around his neck.
“Three times, all pointing back to the Theonis system,” she said.
“Theonis…Theonis?” Gage’s eyes narrowed.
“Nothing there but low-scale asteroid mining.” Price shrugged. “Three jumps from any relevant star system. No known Daegon presence. If I may, trying to get sneaky through Podunk systems doesn’t seem to fit their style. They’ve taken the bulldozer approach thus far.”
“I agree with you.” Gage’s hands moved through the holo and a least-time course from the translation point to New Madras appeared. “Why haven’t the Indus sent recon probes to get eyes on?”
“They have. Every unit they send sends back nothing or goes off-line. It’s weird and I think the locals are starting to get scared,” she said.
“That’s all we need now, isn’t it? A ghost fleet on our doorstep,” Gage said. Alerts flashed in the tank as Indus fleets began moving outward from the planet. “No, no, no, Chadda, what are you doing?”
“Did they not listen to you when you laid out how the Daegon assault planets?” Price put a hand on top of her helmet.
“They heard me…but they didn’t listen,” Gage said.
A channel request pinged in the holo and Gage touched it. Admiral Chadda appeared in a window. “Commodore Gage, this is more in line with what we expect from a Daegon attack, is it not?” The Indus man gave him a derisive smile.
“We’ve yet to encounter Daegon that can go invisible to sensors,” Gage said. “I suggest a reconnaissance in force to see what we’re dealing with.”
“A good suggestion…in fact, why don’t you do it? It is your idea,” Chadda said.
Gage paused, realizing he’d essentially volunteered for the mission. “In the interest of cooperation, the 11th Albion Fleet will go,” he said. “Though I need to leave behind my two destroyers currently void-docked with tenders to complete their repairs.”
“Certainly. Find out what we’re dealing with and report back. I’ll decide how to engage from there. Chadda out.” The window flipped off.
“What’s his problem?” Price asked.
“Seems he sees us as the junior partner in this alliance. Hard to disagree as he has so many more ships. Make ready to weigh anchor and set us on an intercept course on the least-time plot from the slip-space detection,” Gage said.
“Not to denigrate our hosts…but if we were on Albion and survivors of a new enemy showed up and told us how to fight them, I’d shut up and listen,” Price said. “Plotting course now.”
“Vicarious learning is the best way to grow from painful lessons.” Gage brought up the comm menu for the destroyer Cutlass. “But knowing that can be a lesson in and of itself.”
He opened a secure, private channel to the ship’s commander, Lieutenant Commander Timmons.
“Commodore?” Timmons wiped sweat from her brow. “My engineering section is open to vacuum while work crews replace the capacitor relays. It’ll take me—”
“At least four hours to be functional,” Gage said. “Which is faster than the Stiletto in the berth next to you. Four hours is long enough. The rest of the fleet and I are moving to scout out this disturbance. Should anything…drastic happen, you are to retrieve a VIP in the Theni embassy and take said VIP to Geneva. Even in a hard bore, your destroyer can make that trip.”
“A bore to Geneva? We’d be on emergency rations before…but the math works. Aye aye,” she said as concern grew on her face. “What do you think is out there, sir?”
“We’re doing this recon face-first,” Gage said, shaking his head, “which is not how I want to do it, but needs must. Are your instructions clear?”
“Crystal.”
“Gage, out.” He closed the channel as the Orion lurched out of orbit and turned toward the distant moon.
“You made it back from the shore party without being stabbed this time,” Price said. “An improvement, wouldn’t you say?”
“I accomplished more getting stabbed by a pirate than I did being polite to the Indus.” Gage rubbed his arm and chest where Loussan had hurt him. “Maybe there’s something to more aggressive diplomacy. Ten hours to the moon. Take some time off your feet, XO.”
“With all due respect,” she said, “when was the last time you slept?”
“I had at least an hour on the shuttle down. I’m good for days,” he said.
“You take three hours to sleep and then I’ll take three hours,” she said.
“No.”
“Fine. I take th
ree hours then you take three hours.”
“Acceptable.” Gage nodded and began reading through repair and personnel status messages in his inbox. “But one sign of the enemy and the deal’s off.”
CHAPTER 9
The interior lights of the Joaquim were low for the ship’s night cycle. Pirates slept against crates and each other, the rough-and-tumble types used to a lack of luxury. One, a woman with a headscarf adorned with small coins along the edge, stood up and stretched.
She glanced up at a rail-thin man with tattoos running up and down his arms and creeping up his neck who was standing on a catwalk that ran along the cargo bay. He puffed on a nic-stick and scratched beneath his nose with his thumbnail. The woman went around a cargo pod and nudged the shoulder of three men sleeping in a corner.
“What is it, Tatiana?” asked a dark-skinned man as he pushed another off his shoulder.
“Ahn, Jurl, Smitty…you’re the last ones.” She squatted down and continued at a low hush. “Any of you happy with getting all of eight troys for this cruise?”
“Straight-up bollocks is what it is,” Smitty said as he wiped sleep from his face. “Lose all our stuff on the Carlin, jackboots’ cell, then we get marooned on that bloody Bucky’s place? Eight troys…should get at least twenty. That’s the Harlequin minimum.”
“Least we get something,” said Jurl, the dark-skinned man. “Better alive with some clink in our pocket than dead in the void.”
“It’s all Loussan’s fault.” The third looked up at the man on the catwalk, then narrowed his eyes at Tatiana. “You feeling froggy, my girl?”
“Slight worse than froggy, Ahn. Loussan’s bent the knee to the jackboots. Lost his ship. Lost the lives of our fellow Harleys. Lost my respect for him as captain. Any of you feel different?” she asked.
Ahn and Smitty shook their heads, then looked at Jurl.
“You talking an honor duel?” Jurl asked. “How’s that work in the code? This technically isn’t Loussan’s ship. Someone challenges him, official-like, he’ll just have Ruprecht stand in for him.”
“We’re not doing this by the code,” Tatiana hissed. “This ain’t no Harley ship. No family ship. Code don’t apply here…so we do things our own way. We take this ship, void that freak on the bridge, and leave Loussan on Bucky’s with one troy to his name so he can beg on the docks for the rest of his life. No one will ever take him on again, especially after we let the families know what he’s been up to with the jackboots.”
“And him?” Jurl looked over at the sealed container that held the Katar assassin, Ruprecht.
“We take him back to Lord Moineau on Sicani. He loves his Katars. Couple tweaks to Ruprecht’s code and he’ll never even remember Loussan…or us,” Tatiana said.
“I don’t know…” Jurl frowned.
“You want to try and make your way on Bucky’s?” Smitty asked. “Or you want to give the jackboot and Loussan what’s coming to them and we head back to free space like proper Harlequins?”
“How would we even get control of this bucket?” Jurl asked.
“Geet found a skeleton cipher in one of the empty bunk rooms.” She nodded at the lookout.
“You think he found an actual skeleton cipher?” Smitty asked. “He’s dumber than a box of rocks. Bet he thought it was a drive full of dirty movies.”
“I’ve got it,” Tatiana said, touching a pocket on her loose pants, “and I know it’s legit. He’s been a sharp cookie lately. Guess seeing the inside of a jackboot cell convinced him to start putting a little effort into being a proper Harlequin.”
“Maybe he put smarter rocks in the box,” Ahn said, nodding his head slowly. The other pirates looked at him for a moment, then back at Tatiana.
“You were the last ones I had to ask. Everyone else is on board. Here’s the plan…” she said.
****
Tatiana, Smitty and Jurl walked down the catwalk, and she opened the door of a crew cabin slightly, then slipped inside. Three pirates on four of the bunks sat right up, crude knives and heavy bludgeoning tools in hand. The fourth was still snoring.
“Geet!” Tatiana kicked the man’s ankles and he sat bolt upright, his head hitting the bunk overhead.
“Ow! I wasn’t sleeping, Chief. On my duties as proper.” He rubbed his forehead quickly and blinked hard at the rest of the pirates in the small room. “What’s this then?”
“‘What’s this then’?” Tatiana reached under his bunk and tossed him an emergency hood. “What do you think it is? We’re almost to the Concord system. Time to be about our duties, Geet. You’re with me. Rest of you lot make for Loussan’s cabin and get him tied up soon as we’ve the bridge. Simple as that.”
Lifting the side of her blouse, she revealed an emergency-hood pack on her belt. Then she tucked the edge of her garment into her belt and palmed a small data stick in one hand, a sharpened bit of ceramic with a cloth handle in the other.
“We’re true Harlequins, none of you forget that,” she said. “That’s why we’re doing this.”
“Here, here,” the rest said in unison—all but Geet, who was still fighting sleep.
“Sorry, what do we—” Geet stopped talking when Ahn shoved a small hatchet from the ship’s tool chest into his hands.
“Mouth shut. Head down. Ears open, you tosser,” Ahn said. “Just like aboard the Carlin.”
“If you say so…” Geet frowned at the hatchet.
Tatiana left the bunk room, Smitty and Geet behind her. She glanced over her shoulder and smiled at Smitty as they neared the mess area.
“You boys ready for another exciting meal of expired oatmeal? Rehydrated just this—” She bolted to one side, made straight for the bridge door, flipped a latch up and jammed the cipher into the port. One glance into the porthole and she smiled. She could see the back of Tolan’s head, canted to one side of the command seat. Asleep.
“Come on, come on…” She felt a thrum through the cipher and the bolts on the door popped open.
Tatiana kicked the door open and lunged forward, Smitty on her heels. Her shiv arced down and stabbed into the base of Tolan’s neck. Instead of blood, a puff of downy feathers floated into the air.
“The hell?” Tatiana drew her knife back and a hologram flickered around a man-shaped bundle of pillows and blankets.
The door to the bridge slammed shut, cutting Geet off from the other two.
“Get control! Get control of the ship!” Tatiana hit Smitty on the shoulder and went to the door. When the handle wouldn’t budge, she tried the cipher key, but nothing happened.
Geet tapped on the glass with the butt of his hatchet. “Do I just guard the door, ma’am?” he asked, his words dampened.
“Bloody idiot.” Tatiana whirled around. Smitty looked dumbfounded, staring at a bank of blank control panels.
An alarm klaxon sounded and an environmental alert flashed next to the door. She felt a rush of cool air against her face from a vent over the door as “O2 MIX” flashed on and off around the door. Gunshots rang out from elsewhere in the ship and Geet’s face went pale.
“Ah, ah, ah.” Tolan appeared on all the bridge screens. “You’ve all been bad pirates. I really don’t have the time or energy to rub your noses in the mess you’ve made, so enjoy some lovely pure nitrogen flooding the entire ship. Amazing stuff, nitrogen. It’s in every breath you take, but you never really care about it. It’s the oxygen that matters. And the more nitrogen in the air you breathe, the less oxygen’s actually getting into your bloodstream. Not a bad way to die, all things considered.”
“You freak asshole.” Tatiana slipped the emergency hood from its case and put it on. A press of a button later and stale air with a note of sweetness filled her nose. “You think we don’t know that trick? It’s as old as void piracy. Bunch of whimpering civilians locked away in a ship? Foul their air until they give up or get dead and compliant.”
Smitty already had his mask on, but Tatiana had to knock on the porthole and point to her hood to get Geet
to don his.
“Where are you?” she asked, looking at Tolan on all the screens. He had a rebreather to his mouth. “Where are you, you Faceless freak? Don’t make this any harder than it should be and we’ll let you off at that shit hole of a spaceport you had in mind for us. You’ll live, just with a few more bruises than you’d like.”
“I’m going to have to pass on that on, toots,” Tolan said. “People to see. Things to do…and I really am at my wits’ end with you bunch of criminals. All those years I spent in wild space gave me some real trust issues. Oh, by the way, notice a faint strawberry scent in your hoods? That’s a nifty little poison called Lisbon’s Kiss. I picked it up back when I was doing the whole Faceless-for-hire routine. You should note some slight tingling in your extremities by now.”
Tatiana held up a hand. Her fingers had gone numb. She ripped the hood off her face and gagged. Smitty slumped against the control panel, his eyes watering, snot pouring from his nose.
“Real gamut of physiological reactions to the Lisbon,” Tolan said. “But cardiovascular shutdown takes about two minutes from initial exposure. Your hoods were spiked with the poison. So yes, I did know that old trick about fouling the air.”
Geet banged against the porthole with the handle of his hatchet, yelling as he waffled between having his hood on or off.
Tatiana’s legs went numb and she fell to the deck, her vision going dark as she gasped like a fish.
“All in all, not a great way to go. But not too terrible,” Tolan said. “See you all in hell.”
The door to the bridge opened and Geet stumbled inside, hatchet raised and one hand over his mouth.
“Tati?” he nudged her with his foot and she coughed up a bit of phlegm, then let out a slow death rattle.
“Smitty?”
The other pirate sat on the deck, his legs stretched out, back to the control panel, head lolled to one side and one foot twitching.
Geet tossed his hood away with a high-pitched shriek, then turned around.