“Captain Sokol is Queen Victoria’s father,” Lord Yamashida explained. “She’s rather insistent that he give up on his wanderings and retire to help her run Greater Victoria. Her agents have a regrettable habit of attempting to kidnap him when they can find him. I believe there are also some rather wealthy ladies in the Second Bastion who insist he’s their husband-”
“Lies and slander. Smuggle an heiress or two out of Muslim territory during a war, and you never hear the end of it.”
“-and of course the Teldari nomads are still hoping to get revenge for the desecration of their high priestess.”
“They were going to sacrifice her to that robot god of theirs,” he protested. “What was I supposed to do, leave her there to die? If that replicant Dusty pawned off on me had worked to spec they never would have known the difference.”
Naoko was giving the captain an incredulous look now, but everyone else was smiling. I guess that was the idea then? Still, I had no idea what to think about all that. I guess when you’re older than dirt you end up having some history?
Greater Victoria was one of the most powerful colonies in the sector. Why would anyone pass up the chance to be part of the government there? Just so he wouldn’t have to take orders from his daughter… who was really stubborn, and had a big enough ego that she’d named her colony after herself. Okay, maybe I could see that. But what about the rest of it?
I made a note to get Dusty to share stories when I got back to the ship. If he’d been involved in some of the captain’s adventures I was sure he’d be happy to talk.
The oyabun chuckled. “Ah, those were the days. But even so, we can’t have mistakes like this become accepted. The Masu-kai stand by their allies, and there’s also the treasure to consider. Do you realize that this is our only outstanding lead on the location of the Yata no Kagami?”
Kaneda looked horrified.
“That information was not made available to me, my lord,” he said. “I assure you, my men would have acted with the utmost restraint had we known.”
“Such secrets cannot be so widely disseminated,” Lord Yamashida put in smoothly, like this was an old argument. “My department was still verifying our information, in preparation for bringing it to Lord Himura’s attention. How did you learn of it, anyway?”
“The salvage sales were mentioned in last month’s general intelligence update,” Kaneda said, looking like it was physically painful to give up his source.
Yamashida shook his head. “Hence my argument that we should filter that data before providing it to the clans. But that is a discussion for another time.”
I wondered how many points he’d just scored for himself, and whether he’d set this whole thing up somehow just to make Kaneda look bad. Snake.
“We can discuss that at the next policy meeting,” Lord Himura agreed. “Now, Jiro, I’d say your man owes Captain Sokol an apology and the price of repairs. Thankfully no one was killed in the attack, although I understand there were casualties?”
“Alice here was gravely injured in the boarding action,” Captain Sokol agreed.
All eyes turned to me.
“Really? How did a young girl get caught up in something like that?” Lord Himura asked.
I swallowed. Keep it simple, Alice. Don’t make a fool of yourself.
“I was helping out with the passenger management, my lord,” I said. “So I was the first one to find out that the traveling bot salesman we had on board was actually an infiltrator. I was in the best position to keep his bots from doing too much damage while Chief West scrambled the security teams. Then Emla got shot, and I kind of lost it.”
“She exacted retribution from Mr. Desh, and fortunately Emla’s damage turned out to be repairable,” the captain said. “But she spent quite a while in medbay afterwards. What were your injuries, Alice?”
“Um, both kidneys and most of my liver fried, two shattered ribs and a collapsed lung, third degree burns over forty percent of my body and a whole lot of general tissue replacement. It’s a good thing my damage control mods were growing in at that point, or I would have collapsed before he ran out of bots.”
It was kind of funny how unsettled all these tough criminal masterminds looked at my recitation. Like they didn’t send out their inugami to do stuff like that all the time. Was it different when the target was a little girl? Or was it just the fact that I was standing here in front of them, instead of being some faceless statistic?
Yamashida’s expression never changed at all. I’d have to remember that.
“Clan Kaneda regrets this unwarranted attack,” Lord Kaneda said. “We will, of course, make restitution. I understand that the lady’s clan is unknown?”
Surprisingly, it was Akio who answered.
“Federation Intelligence had her marked for observation, but they don’t seem to know anything definite. Her mods are clearly Inner Sphere technology, but the other clues are uncertain at best. Perhaps one of the Second Sunrise clans, or an allied group in one of the Periphery states. Given the travel times involved it will take years to conduct an investigation, and we may never be sure.”
“Then we shall assume that she is the last of her clan,” Lord Kaneda said gravely. “Alice, do you wish to personally chastise the agent responsible for your ordeal?”
Well, that was a surprise.
“No thank you, my lord. I’m confident that I can rely on Clan Kaneda to handle this matter appropriately.”
I wasn’t sure if I was more likely to kill the guy, or just yell at him and let him go. But either way it would offend his clan if I didn’t handle it exactly the way they thought I should, so it was better to let it go.
“Very well, Alice. I shall see to this matter personally, and of course the clan will make proper restitution as well.”
With that settled the conversation turned to the damage the Square Deal had taken, and it quickly became obvious that Captain Sokol was going to come out of this thing pretty well. Apparently being mistakenly attacked by yakuza pays pretty well, assuming you survive the experience.
I missed half of that discussion, though, because a ping from my account manager distracted me. My personal credit account had just received a deposit.
It was really hard not to let anything show on my face, but somehow I managed it.
Three hundred thousand credits? That was his idea of restitution? That was six years of pay for the average spacer! Most people have to work for a decade or more to save up that kind of money. Just the interest would be enough to live on if I invested it somewhere. I could buy myself a decent suit of powered armor, and some warbots, and maybe a hoverbike. Heck, I could buy my own ship.
Well, okay, not really. I could maybe buy a dinky little open source courier ship or scout or something, and then I’d have no way to make enough money to maintain it. I didn’t even know how to run a ship, really. But a few years of working for Captain Sokol would fix that. I could get all my certifications, learn how to be a bounty hunter or mercenary or something, and save up some more money until I had everything figured out. Then, when I was ready, I could buy a ship and go do anything I wanted to.
Freedom. That was a surprisingly tempting idea.
I wrestled my attention back to the conversation at hand, and found that they were talking about the Mirai wreck now. Where it was, the condition it was in, what Sokol’s crew had done to try to find the gold.
“Obtaining plans for the ship has so far proved impossible,” the captain was saying. “We’ve conducted several searches, and I’m somewhat confident that the holds we found were the main ones, but it’s difficult to be certain. Two and a half million tons of gold may sound like a lot, but it’s a small needle to find amid the wreckage of a twenty thousand meter warship.”
“I’m sure it’s simply a matter of applying sufficient resources to the problem,” Lord Hoshida said dismissively. “Akio, have you finished that proposal?”
“Yes, father. We’ll need to send both salvage vessels and
most of the shipyard crew to conduct a proper search, and they’ll need an additional fourteen million cubic meters of climate-controlled space for facilities and living quarters. I propose that we charter the Square Deal for the mission, and send a frigate and a pair of drone carriers with them as escorts. The frigate will also make an adequate command post, and can provide quarters for a battalion of inugami marines. Just in case the bots on this wreck aren’t all dead.”
“That seems reasonable. Just quote us your hazard rate, Dan. That will make a nice little bonus for you if the gold doesn’t turn up.”
“I, ah, do have certain commitments, my lord-”
“Nonsense! Let Akio know what you need delivered, and we’ll take care of it. This is history in the making. I only wish I could be there myself, but my heir will have to do. Akio, you’ll be leading this expedition.”
Akio gave him a startled look. “Me, father?”
“Yes, yes, officially you’re not of age yet. But think what it will do for your reputation to return with the mirror! Noburu, I’ll need you go along as well, and make sure that this trip is a success.”
Lord Yamashida’s face was still an expressionless mask, but I thought I detected a hint of tension in his shoulders.
“Of course, my lord. I shall begin preparations at once. When can we expect to be ready for departure, young master?”
“Well, the shipyard is busy with a rush order for the Crimson Tide right now-”
“Cancel it,” Lord Hoshida snapped. “No, wait, we have that fancy new backup system for all the shipyard techs, don’t we? Just copy them, and the originals can stay on the job. Tell the copies we’ll find places for them if they succeed, but otherwise I make no promises. Now, how long to load the ships?”
Akio blinked, but didn’t object. “Three days until we can depart, father.”
“Good, that’s what I like to hear. Make it happen.”
Chapter 25
It was amazing how good it felt to be back in my cabin. Even though I’d only been living there for a few weeks, it had already started to seem like home. Emla and I must have spent an hour in the bath, just soaking in the big hot tub without having to worry about hidden cameras. Then Lina and Kara came over to welcome me back, and we ended up watching another episode of that silly spy series together. For a few hours I managed to feel safe again.
But then the yard dogs started showing up, and it wasn’t long before the whole ship was overrun with them. I had to get back to work, helping Naoko set up living quarters for the horde of canine techs. There wasn’t nearly enough space in the passenger cabins, of course, so we had to convert an entire hold into barracks for the workers.
“They form social bonds in packs of four to six members,” Akio advised us. “They’re also used to rather Spartan conditions. Give each pack their own bedroom and bathroom, with a communal rec room and dining area for each group of twenty or so packs, and they’ll be fine.”
Yes, we were seeing a lot of Akio. He couldn’t oversee everything personally, of course, but he made a point of coming over at the start of each new phase of the work. He’d go over what needed to be done, introduce us to the Masu-kai officers we’d be working with, field whatever questions we came up with, and generally try to make sure things were going to go smoothly. He was pretty good at it, too.
We were still terribly overworked, and this time we couldn’t call on the rest of the crew for help. Beatrice, Dusty and the cargo crew were all busy with offloading some of our cargo and packing the holds with thousands of giant shipping containers. The techs had their hands full repairing the last of our battle damage, making sure power and life support would work properly everywhere they were needed. We had to rely on the yard dog officers to organize a lot of the move themselves, so it was a good thing they were cooperative.
Even the inugami were polite, but I didn’t find that reassuring. We had to take on a company of the marines Akio was bringing, and these were military models rather than the infiltrators I’d seen before. They looked about the same to the naked eye, but the enhancements I picked up beneath the skin were serious business. Their bodies were all synthetic instead of organic, making them spaceproof and immune to stuff like poison or radiation. They had nuke packs hidden inside their armored chests, and while their strength boosts weren’t in Akio’s league they were pretty decent.
More importantly, each of them had a squad of modern warbots under her command. Collectively they had a lot more firepower than Chief West’s security teams, and they weren’t shy about basically taking over the ship and posting their own guards wherever they wanted them.
That worried me. I didn’t think Akio was going to suddenly decide to kill us over money, but I wasn’t so sure about Lord Yamashida. When Chief West called me into his office I was really hoping he was going to bring me in on some kind of secret defense plan.
“You’re pretty sharp, kid,” he chuckled. “Yeah, everyone on this ship keeps a few aces up their sleeve. But a company of marines is a lot of firepower, so everyone needs to do their part. You ready to pitch in on some sneaky contingency plan shit?”
“You bet, Chief! What can I do?”
“First off, I’m giving you a bigger detachment of warbots. I want you to stash some of them in your cabin’s storeroom, and be ready to take out the inugami in your area and set up a defensive position where noncombatants can hide out. Dusty’s cabin is right down the hall from you, and there’s a couple of other guys who might need to run your way instead of heading for a safe room.”
“Yes, Chief. Any chance I can get some time on an industrial fabricator in the next few days? This would work better if I could build some special hardware. Chameleon mines, sensor clouds, that kind of thing.”
“I can do better than that. The captain has approved you for security team membership, so I’m giving you access to some of our hidden assets. There’s a secret fabricator bay where you can build stuff like that without our guests noticing, and have it delivered through a network of secret passages that cover the critical parts of the ship. I’m keeping the system pretty busy right now, but I’ll set the priorities so you can get some jobs of your own in. You’ve got permission to make anything that will help you fight these guys, so don’t worry about getting billed for it. Just make sure you don’t do something obvious and give the game away, alright?”
“Of course, Chief. Um, are we expecting a fight?”
“I don’t know, do you think you can convince your new boyfriend to play nice?”
“He’s not my boyfriend!” I protested.
“Sure, that’s why he keeps coming up with excuses to see you. Just don’t dump him while we’re in gunnery range of his ships, alright?”
“I’m not dumping him!”
“Oh, so you’ve decided to be a yakuza princess? Too bad, I was starting to think you could make a good assistant.”
I rolled my eyes. “You’re impossible, Chief. Here I am trying to be professional, and you’ve got to make jokes about my personal life.”
“Who’s joking? You do what you want, kid, but don’t forget that decisions have consequences. Any way you go, this is serious business.”
“I know.” I huffed, and crossed my arms. “Look, I like him, but I know I can’t really trust him. I’m just trying to keep things friendly until this whole thing is over. Hopefully he’ll play nice as long as he’s still trying to win me over.”
“We can hope. But just in case, I need you to do some recon work too. Nothing obvious, just collect readings on the marines and their gear with those hidden sensors of yours. We don’t have a lot of info on what those girls are capable of, and every little bit helps.”
“Sure, that sounds easy.”
“Oh, and the captain is planning to bring you along for all the planning meetings while we’re in hyperspace, so be ready for that.”
“Yes, Chief,” I said sourly.
Great, now the captain was trying to use me against Akio. How long would it be befo
re Akio started pressuring me for inside information on the Square Deal? This whole situation just sucked.
We broke orbit later that day, in the middle of a whole squadron of Masu-kai ships. The two salvage vessels were lumpy, ungainly-looking things about five hundred meters long, that were packed full of survey drones and industrial equipment. They didn’t have much in the way of weapons, but they didn’t need them considering the size of our escort.
The pair of drone carriers that Lord Himura sent with us were fat, boxy vessels eight hundred meters long, packed full of drones and expendable munitions. Where the Square Deal carried a couple hundred attack drones to fend off pirates, each of these ships had thousands of the robotic attack craft packed into its magazines. Not to mention hundreds of much larger escort drones designed to fend of missile attacks and drone strikes, and who knows how many boarding bots.
That was far too much firepower for the Square Deal to fight, but at least we had a remote chance of getting away from them if things went bad. It takes time to launch swarms of drones, more time for them to make their attack runs, and a lot of hits to burn through the outer layers of a well-armored ship and start destroying vital equipment like the fusion reactors. The drone carriers couldn’t match our acceleration, and their drones couldn’t make the rough transition between the Delta and Gamma Layers under their own power. If we ran fast enough, and dodged up and down among the layers of hyperspace well enough, they might not be able to catch us.
The frigate that Akio and Lord Yamashida were using as their flagship was another story. At eleven hundred meters long it was an intimidating sight. Sixty million tons of armor and weapons, with a top acceleration of at least thirty gravities. Unlike the drone carriers it was designed for close combat, with heavily armored flanks and huge turret-mounted mass drivers arranged along the top and bottom of the ship.
It was those mass drivers that really worried me. The eight main turrets each housed a pair of 20cm mass drivers with a muzzle velocity somewhere well into the tens of thousands of kilometers per second, and the arrangement allowed all of them to fire on targets in a broad arc to either side of the ship. The squadron’s formation put the Square Deal right in the middle of their firing arc, and our deflectors weren’t going to stop firepower of that magnitude. They’d punch right through our armor as well, and with several kilotons of impact energy it wouldn’t take many hits to wreck the ship.
Perilous Waif (Alice Long Book 1) Page 39