“They said you were ranting about cargo,” the chief said.
“I just said I only had one beer but we had to get the cargo loaded.” He sighed. “It might have been loud and slightly slurred. I was heading back to the ship. Were you worried?”
I laughed but the chief nodded. “A bit. We didn’t want to leave without you.”
“Did they say why they grabbed you? Ransom? Leverage?” I asked.
“I assumed it had something to do with the cargo going to the mega. I asked, but they didn’t offer any kind of answer,” he said. “So? What did I miss?”
I heard shoes skwiching up the hall. “A little of this. A little of that. We’ll fill you in when you get back to the ship.”
The med-tech breezed into the room. “Out. Time’s up. Visiting hours are over. Vamoose.”
I held my hands up and backed toward the door. “Contact the Chernyakova before you let him out and we’ll send an escort to make sure he gets home safely.”
She grinned at me. “Will do, Captain. Don’t worry. We’ll take good care of him.”
The chief followed me out to the lobby where Oscella stood with two uniformed security officers. She looked up as we entered. “What’s his story?”
“Tazed, drugged, held on a docked ship,” I said.
“Yeah, he told us it was dock twenty-one in the small ship area,” one of the officers said, holding a tablet. “He repeated it several times along with demanding a beer.”
“Demanding a beer isn’t unusual for Mr. Carstairs,” the chief said. “What’s the problem with dock twenty-one?”
“There are only fifteen docking rings in the small ship gallery,” he said.
“Any Unwin Eights?” I asked.
“What?” he asked, completely blank-faced.
“Unwin Eight is a model of small fast packet in common use in the area,” the chief said.
The officer shrugged. “They could be empty cans of beans for all I know.”
Oscella pulled up her tablet and flipped a few screens. “Three empty rings,” she said. “Of the rest, one is a Damien Six and the rest are Unwin Eights.”
“What about the ships that left?” the chief asked.
“None have left since yesterday afternoon. If he was on one of those Eights, it’s still docked.”
“Cheeky,” the chief said.
“Stupid,” Oscella said. She tapped on her keyboard and sent a message. “Those ships are impounded until we get to the bottom of it.”
“Can you do that?” I asked.
“Yes,” the chief said. “She can.”
Oscella looked at the senior officer. “Robarts, you and Stevenson here get some backup. Knock on the locks of everybody there. Speak to all of them. If anybody’s not home, then station an officer there.”
“What are we looking for?” Robarts asked.
“When they answer, tell them you need to inspect their staterooms for lice. If they give you any guff, tell them the lice carry a disease and one guy is already in an auto-doc from it. It’s just a public health inspection,” Oscella said.
“Lie to them?” Robarts asked. He didn’t seem to object to the idea. More like he just wanted to clarify his understanding.
“Not at all. The people who’ve done this are lice. They put Mr. Carstairs in an auto-doc. They’re carrying a tendency for violence I don’t want loose on this station. Clear enough?” Oscella asked.
Robarts nodded. “Anything in particular we need to note?”
“Handcuffs,” the chief said. “Eights have a grab rail on the bulkhead and a safety bar on the exposed edge. Mr. Carstairs has contusions on his right arm consistent with being handcuffed to one of those two rails.”
“Would they leave the cuffs there with Mr. Carstairs loose?” Stevenson asked.
“Maybe,” the chief said. “The bars are painted chrome. They’ll chip if you sneeze on them. I suspect most of them will have minor dings and scratches, but handcuffs leave a ring. The fresh chips of paint will be pretty obvious.”
Oscella looked at the chief. “Voice of experience?”
“Over the course of my career I’ve seen the results of way too many people handcuffed to the bed.”
Oscella took a long look at the chief’s face and nodded. “You heard the woman.”
Robarts and Stevenson sketched a salute in Oscella’s direction and headed for the door.
“He say anything else?” Oscella asked.
“He’s seen something of his captors but not the people who grabbed him,” the chief said. “I’m not sure how much his testimony would hold up at trial, given that he seems to have been repeatedly drugged and fed beer.”
“Fed beer?” she asked.
“He never mentioned food. Just beer.” The chief shrugged. “They could have fed him but he’d remember the beer.”
“He didn’t say what kind of beer,” I said.
The chief turned toward me but her gaze focused somewhere else. “He didn’t.”
Oscella frowned. “Is that significant?”
“Might be. If he knows the brand and it’s not common, it might help find the right ship,” I said. “Lemme go ask him.” I trotted back to the med-bay, knocking before entering. I found Pip still clamped into the bottom half of the auto-doc and the tech lounging across the room with an enigmatic smile.
“Captain? I thought I said no more visiting.”
“Sorry, I need to ask one question.”
She nodded.
“What kind of beer was it?” I asked.
He looked blank for a moment. “Rock-Knocker Red Ale.”
“Was it any good?”
He shrugged. “Better than most. Cute label. Has a—” He bit off his words and glanced at the med-tech, who looked me in the eye.
“It’s got a mostly naked woman on the label, Captain. She’s in a somewhat compromising position,” she said. “It’s a bit pricey but the people who like it seem to like it for more than the label.”
“Thanks for that clarification.”
“My pleasure, Captain, now ...?” She raised her eyebrows and made a little finger twiddle motion that clearly said “run along now” without a word being uttered.
I walked back to the lobby. “Have them look for Rock-Knocker Red Ale bottles.”
Oscella gave me a double-take. “Rock-Knocker Red Ale?”
“That’s what he said.”
Oscella shrugged. “I’m not an aficionado but is that like going to a hardware store and looking for a particular screw?”
“If the description of the label is any indication, that might be closer to the truth than you think.”
Chapter 32
Dark Knight Station: 2376, March 12
We left Captain Oscella in the lobby of the aid station and walked back to the ship. “This has been a day,” the chief said.
“What are we going to do about the bomb?”
“Well, it’s been there for at least eighteen months.”
“It makes me nervous just being that close. Knowing that somebody could decide to pull the trigger any moment,” I said.
“Nothing we can do about it right now,” she said. “I haven’t heard from Kondur today. Did he get out of the med-bay?”
“No idea.” I keyed the lock and walked up the ramp.
The chief followed me and the lock started closing before I could reach the key. Surprised, I turned to the brow watch and froze. A pale Bentley stood behind the watch station. The woman beside him looked calm and collected. The barrel of her needler fit neatly into Bentley’s right ear.
“Welcome back, Captain,” she said. “We’ve been waiting for you.”
“Log us aboard, if you would, Mr. Bentley,” I said.
“Logging aboard, aye, aye, Captain.”
“How cute is that,” the woman remarked to nobody in particular.
“So, you’re here to make sure we deliver your cargo, I take it?” I asked.
“I heard you were smart,” she said.
&
nbsp; “Is the can latched on?” I asked.
“We wouldn’t be here if it weren’t,” she said. “The crew’s all here except for that irritating man, Carstairs, but you won’t need him this trip. He’ll have plenty of time to recover from his ordeal.”
“Well, then, I suppose there’s not much keeping us here.” I looked over my shoulder at the chief. “Would you get us ready for pull out? I’ll track down Mr. Reed to file our departure.” I started to walk into the ship.
“Hold up, Captain. We can’t have you wandering around the ship by yourself,” the woman said.
“Make up your mind. You want us to get underway or not? I’m happy to do it, with or without that weapon giving Bentley there an earache. I want to get this albatross of a can delivered and return with the other one so I can get back to trading. I’ve already been tied up here too long because you people can’t seem to get your act together. Now, we both want the same thing. You can fight me to make me do it or you can get out of my way so I can be rid of you and get on with turning a profit. Your call.” I paused and stared at her. “One thing. I can’t fly this ship with half a crew. We barely have enough hands to keep it going as it is. You start getting stupid and none of us will see a gravity well again.”
“Big talk, Captain.”
I laughed and walked into the ship. “Send your escort. Doesn’t matter to me. We’re getting underway and once we undock, it’s a long walk home.”
The adrenaline hit me when I walked past the mess deck and saw the crew seated at the tables, their hands flat in front of them. It took me a lot of heartbeats to tamp it down. Five people in light body armor prowled the room. Each of them carried a needler. Everybody looked at me. I stopped and the chief almost bumped into me.
“Who thinks they’re in charge here?” I asked.
The guy in the corner nearest the coffee urns, straightened up from a slouch and gave me what he must have thought was an evil grin. A skinny man with half his hair shaved off leaving a bald scalp trailing patches of fuzz down the sides, he brandished a long gun—a needler model I’d seen before and spent some amount of time with at the academy. The length made it a liability in the close quarters of a ship’s passages but quite effective on orbitals where the longer barrel gave it better accuracy. “Nice to see you accepting realities, Captain.”
“All I’m accepting is that you people are getting in the way. If you want to get underway, these people need to be working, not sitting here while you prance around like some B-grade holovid villain.” I looked at the chief. “Get us ready for a pushback, Chief.”
She nodded and stepped around me to look into the mess deck. “Wallace, Murawsky, Wicklund. With me.”
The three engineering crew looked at the gunmen. The gunmen looked to the thug in the corner.
The chief sighed. “Seems like they don’t really want to leave, Skipper.”
I stepped into the mess deck and walked to the cup rack. “You people haven’t really thought this through, have you?”
“Shut up,” the skinny guy said.
I sighed and pulled a mug from the rack. I crossed to the urns and the leader snapped his weapon around so it pointed at me. I stared at him while I drew a mug of coffee. I took a sip and tossed the rest into the drain. “Ms. Sharps?” I kept looking at the guy who thought he was in charge.
“Yes, Captain?” She sat on the bench nearest the galley.
“The coffee is cold.”
“I know, Captain. Sorry about that. The ... guests ... have been hampering our operation.”
“I see that, Ms. Sharps. Who’s got the duty today?”
“That would be Mr. Franklin, Skipper.”
“Mr. Franklin?” I said.
“Yes, Captain?”
“Mr. Franklin, would you get at least one of these urns operational for me, please?”
“Ah, that’s going to be difficult, sar.”
I stepped up to the skinny guy, walking right up until the barrel of his weapon pressed against my chest. I leaned into it so he had to take a step back. “Son, I don’t know who you think you are or how you think you people are going to manage keeping the ship flying and the crew sitting at these tables for the next week but I’ve got a bit of a newsie for you. You can’t. We can’t fly the ship from the mess deck. We can’t fly the ship if we’re hungry, thirsty, or exhausted. You need to make up your mind how you want this to go down. Either get out of our way or start killing us now, because those are your choices.” I leaned into the gun a little harder, forcing him to take another half-step back. “Start with me because if you start killing my crew, you’re going to have to deal with me in real short order.”
“Jack, go with the biddie and her chicks. Make sure they don’t do anything funny. Benny, walk behind Jack,” the guy said, staring into my eyes.
“Good choice. That biddie and her chicks are going to make sure we get where we’re going without suffocating on the way. Now, Ms. Sharps and her mess deck crew need to get into the galley and begin preparing the meals. Unless you’re planning on feeding twenty-odd people and yourselves in the process, I suggest you put down the weapons, and get out of our way. I’ve been threatened by pros and you’re not even in the farm league. You’ve got a lot to learn.”
“Oh yeah?” His sneer curled his upper lip almost to his nose. “Like what?”
I grabbed the gun, twisted it away from his trigger finger, broke his hold on it, and wrenched it out of his hands. It took me two tries to get the magazine out and clear the chamber, but I still thrust it back into his chest before he got his jaw closed. “Like don’t screw with stuff you don’t understand. Take your toy and get out of my way.”
I stepped away from him but he recovered enough to try to use the gun as a club. I just sidestepped the windmill, letting him swing it all the way to the deck so I could push him after it. I dropped the magazine in my pocket. I looked at the one he called Jack. “What’s this idiot’s name?”
“Snake,” Jack said.
“Snake. How intimidating and original.” I sighed and looked at the chief. “Get us ready to move, Chief. Murawsky, Wallace, Wickland. You’re up. Give her a hand. I want us to be ready to go at the top of the stan.”
The chief nodded. “Top of the stan, aye, Captain.” She waved an arm. “Come on, Jack. You and your buddy need to move a little sharper if you’re going to stay with the crew.” She turned and headed for the spine with her engineering gang on her heels.
I looked at Jack and Benny standing there, apparently stunned.
“Don’t just stand there, idiots. Go,” Snake said, clambering to his feet and glaring at me.
I cast a meaningful look at Ms. Sharps, still sitting at the table with her palms flat on the surface. “Well, Snake? Your call. You getting hungry, yet? Need a cup of coffee? I sure do. It’s been a long day, it’s going to get longer before it’s over, and I get really, really grumpy when I haven’t had my coffee.”
Snake offered me another glare but jerked his head in the direction of the galley. “Don’t get ideas, Sharps.”
She rolled her eyes and nodded to Adams and Franklin. “Come on. We’ve got work to do.” The three of them stood and went into the galley, leaving Snake and two of his henchmen.
To be fair, the henchmen looked at Snake like he’d lost his mind.
“All right. We seem to be working things out. One last question and then I’ll get busy doing what you keep interrupting by telling me I have to do it or—presumably—else. Where are my officers?”
“Next door,” he said.
It took me a few moments to parse that as “in the wardroom.” “How many of the crew made it back aboard?” I asked.
“All of them,” Snake said.
“First, I know that might be what you believe but I happen to know for a fact that at least one of them isn’t. I only ask because I need to figure out what to do if too many of them have learned the ship’s being—and I use the term advisedly, because it’s really questionable when someb
ody holds you at gun point to force you to do the thing you would have done anyway—hijacked.”
Snake’s eyes glazed over for a heartbeat.
“I don’t always talk like that. No. Rather often, I do, yes. I have a bit of a reputation for it.”
Some wag at the back of the room said, “Hear, hear.”
I looked at the other two, since Snake seemed to be tied up parsing. “Who are you?”
The sole female in the group—an undernourished waif sporting impressive biceps and dark circles under her eyes—lifted her chin. “Cindy.”
I nodded. “Cindy.” I looked to the last unknown. “You?”
“None ya damn business.” He waved his gun in my direction.
“Well, nice to meet you, Mr. Nunya. I’d appreciate it if you’d try to stop waving that weapon around. It’s pretty clear you don’t know how to use it and I’m concerned you might accidentally hurt one of my crew.” I looked around while he spluttered in the corner. “Tell you what, Cindy. Why don’t you take over watching the galley to make sure Ms. Sharps doesn’t poison us all with too much oregano in the stew? Stay out from under foot and she might give you a snack. When was the last time you had a decent meal?”
“I ate this morning, thank you very much,” she said.
“Well, be that as it may, Ms. Sharps and her two henchmen are—at this very moment–plotting to prepare the evening meal. Unsupervised, if you catch my meaning.”
Cindy looked around as if to see if anybody was looking at her. Answer, only all the people on the mess deck. She sidled along the bulkhead and scooted into the galley. Ms. Sharps caught my eye through the galley door and grinned.
“Now, since I’m pretty sure Mr. Snake here wants to keep his eye on me, Mr. Nunya, that leaves you to guard the mess deck while my crew prepares the ship for departure.” I looked around. “Who’s supposed to be standing watch now besides Mr. Bentley?”
“Ms. Fortuner has the OOD, sar,” Bentley said.
Ms. Cross raised her hand as did one of Penna’s enginemen and a spec-three with a gravity insignia on his tunic.
“Ms. Cross, would you go to the wardroom and ask Ms. Ross to join me here?”
“Sar, there are other ... people ... with them.”
By Darkness Forged Page 24