Scornful Stars

by Richard Baker

  “Thank you, Reed. Let us know if you spot any sign of someone moving around ahead of us.” Sikander readied his rifle, and cautiously exited the equipment room; the passageway outside was cluttered with air lines and power cables, and the bulkheads had been stripped down to bare metal in preparation for repainting. He picked his way aft with Jackson and the two younger deckhands following him.

  Amelia Fraser’s voice crackled in his ear on their private channel. “Captain, Petty Officer Tolbin tells me that Chief Reza is dead and you’re not on the bridge,” she said. “What are you doing?”

  “Dealing with a very dangerous loose end,” he whispered back to her. He reached the T intersection, and peeked out to look right and left; no one was around, but he saw the steep metal stairs of the ladderway Hollister had mentioned.

  “That’s not your job, Sikander. Leave it to your subordinates. You’ve got a flotilla of four ships to command and I need your help to keep control of this operation. The commanding officer has no business looking for a gunfight.”

  She was right, of course. Fixing his attention on one small tactical problem instead of the whole operation was reckless and self-indulgent by any standard … but at the moment, Sikander didn’t care. Otto Bleindel running around loose on this ship is the biggest threat we face at the moment, he told himself. If dealing with that situation just happened to give him an excuse to settle the score with the KBS agent, well, that wasn’t his fault. “It’s not up to you, XO,” he replied. “Bleindel is here, and there’s a real possibility that he’ll retake the ship. Fend off the Zerzurans and keep an eye on our orbiters—the Dremish might be after our boats. I’ll be back in touch soon.”

  He cut the channel, and continued to the ladderway in silence. Carefully he lay down flat on the deck so that he could peek at the passageway below. No one seemed to be waiting for them, so he retrieved his rifle and moved down the stairs. This passageway gleamed with a fresh coat of paint and shiny new linoleum on the deck; Sikander contacted Hollister again. “Mr. Hollister, is there a good way to get at the mess deck without being seen?”

  “There’s a hatch on your left, about twenty meters ahead of you,” the engineering officer replied. He’d picked up on Sikander’s hushed voice, and kept his reply to a whisper. “It leads to the galley. There are a couple of doors between the galley and the mess deck, and a pass-through too. No one seems to be in there.”

  Sikander motioned to his small team to move aft, weapons at the ready. No one appeared in the passage ahead of them. They came to the galley hatch, quietly opened it, and crept inside. The galley and the mess deck were dark, illuminated only by dim emergency lighting. He picked his way past the industrial stoves and ovens and around a large prep table to a position near the pass-through window, and paused to listen.

  Several people in the room beyond the window seemed to be holding a hushed conversation in Nebeldeutsch. Sikander wanted to take a peek, but he simply couldn’t chance it; he had no idea where the Dremish sailors were and whether any of them might be covering the galley entrance. Instead he turned back to Jackson, Flores, and White, all crouching behind him, and leaned in close to keep his voice to the barest whisper. “Ready flash grenades,” he told them. “Mr. Hollister, on my signal, cut the power to the mess deck for about five seconds, then turn it back on.”

  “Just a moment, Captain. We’re looking for the master power controls … got them. Ready when you are, sir.”

  Sikander armed his flash grenade, showing the sailors with him how to hold the lever clamped close to the casing in case they hadn’t seen it before, and held it at the ready while they armed theirs. “Throw them in the room and make sure to look away,” he whispered. “On the count of three. Mr. Hollister, be ready. One … two … three!”

  The lights went out as Sikander popped upright. He hurled the small flash device in his hand through the galley’s pass-through window out into the darkened room beyond, then dropped back down under the counter again. Beside him, Decisive’s sailors followed his example as the Dremish shouted in alarm or dove for cover. An instant later, a salvo of brilliant white flashes and deafening explosions echoed through the compartment. Sikander felt his way toward the nearest doorway, ears still ringing from the blasts, and reached it just as the lights came back on. Dremish sailors staggered to their feet or stumbled into each other, blinded by the flash grenades—and then the Aquilans opened fire. Three Dremish dropped in the first volley, then two more fell while trying to blink their eyes clear or firing wildly at targets they couldn’t see. Sikander aimed and fired in cold efficiency. It might not have been fair, but the best way to keep more of his people from being hurt or killed was to neutralize the threat as quickly as possible; he’d wrestle with his misgivings later.

  He dropped another sailor who peppered the wrong doorway with a long burst from her autorifle, and heard a cry of pain from one of his own men. He swept the muzzle of his mag rifle to the left, searching out the corner of the room … only to see the remaining Dremish sailors drop their weapons and raise their hands. “Nicht schiessen! Ich gebe auf, ich gebe auf!” they shouted. His translation device couldn’t make out the details with several people shouting at the same time, but clearly they’d had enough.

  “Sir, they’re saying they want to surrender,” Jackson called to Sikander, confirming his guess. Like many comm techs, he had a bit of language training.

  “Hold your fire!” Sikander ordered. He kept his rifle to his shoulder, scanning the room again to make sure no one was about to un-surrender. Eight Dremish were down, several of them clearly dead. Five more remained on their feet, but their hands were in the air; the firefight seemed to be over.

  Otto Bleindel was nowhere in the room.

  “Damn,” Sikander muttered—he’d guessed wrong. Did he circle back to the bridge, or head for the orbiter? “Flores, White, collect their guns. Petty Officer Jackson, keep the Dremish covered.”

  “White’s hurt, sir,” Flores replied. “It’s pretty bad.”

  “Do what you can for him. Jackson, you collect the guns. I’ll cover you.”

  The comm tech hurried out to gather the Dremish weapons, while Sikander motioned for the sailors who could move to gather in the middle of the room and do what they could for the wounded. How many people have been shot on this ship in the last fifteen minutes? he wondered. Fifteen? Twenty? We’ve got one corpsman in the boarding party, and she’s with the orbiter. Treating our own injured is going to be hard enough, but some of the Neu Kiel sailors need serious attention—the sooner, the better.

  Jackson returned with the weapons. “What now, Captain? What do we do with ’em?”

  “We let them go,” Sikander said. “We’ll escort them to the nearest lifeboat and allow them to return to the station. We don’t have the manpower to guard them, and we certainly don’t have enough medical personnel to treat the wounded. Can you explain that to them for me?”

  “Yes, sir,” Jackson replied. He turned and addressed their captives; looks of relief flickered across a few faces.

  That might be the right way to put a stop to this, Sikander realized. Most of these sailors aren’t trained for this and aren’t willing to die for someone else’s ships. If we can make that clear to them, they might choose to withdraw. He thought it over for a moment, and called the bridge. “Petty Officer Tolbin, are you still secure up there?”

  “Yes, sir,” Tolbin replied. “We’ve got the hatch sealed, and the escape scuttles too.”

  “Is the ship’s general announcement system working? And can you put me on?”

  “Just a second.… Yes, sir, I think so. Let me know when you’re ready.”

  “One moment,” Sikander told him. He activated his translation device, and started to speak; the translator issued a stream of Nebeldeutsch in neutral tones. “Attention, Dremish sailors aboard this ship. This is Commander North of the Aquilan navy. Meduse is under our control. We have repelled your attempts to seize the bridge and engineering spaces, and we
’ve captured the force assembled on the mess deck. You have no reasonable chance to retake this ship, and we are about to get under way. We don’t want to take you prisoner and we have no ability to treat your injured, so I urge you to proceed to the lifeboats and leave the ship. Otherwise, we’ll be forced to take you with us and hold you as prisoners until we reach our destination. Enough people have been hurt today—there’s no point in anyone else getting killed. You have five minutes to comply. North, out.”

  “You can’t just seize an Imperial warship!” one of the Dremish petty officers protested. “What gives you the right?”

  “It’s not an Imperial warship anymore. It’s been transferred to the Zerzura Sector Fleet, and we have determined that the Zerzuran government is complicit in piracy. We’re not going to let three heavy cruisers fall into the hands of a pirate regime.” Sikander turned his back on the fellow and moved away for more privacy, then activated the command channel again. “Mr. Shah, Mr. Girard, I’m offering the Dremish forces currently aboard Meduse the opportunity to use the lifeboats and debark before we get under way. You might try a general announcement to extend the same offer to the boarding parties you’re dealing with. We don’t want to take them with us and I doubt that they want to go, over.”

  “Aye, Captain—I’ll speak to the group holed up in our torpedo room and see if I can convince them to leave,” Michael Girard replied.

  “This is Shah. I will make the announcement. We have recaptured the bridge and I believe we can hold all the vital spaces.” The Kashmiri engineer paused, and then added, “Sir, I regret to inform you that Sublieutenant Worth has been killed in action. I think that Zyklop can still get under way, however.”

  Zoe Worth dead? Dear God, this is turning into a disaster. Sikander closed his eyes and took a moment to master his shock before speaking again—he had to project confidence and keep the mission moving ahead, or more deaths might follow. “Acknowledged, Mr. Shah. Give the Dremish sailors a chance to leave first.”

  Since Jackson seemed to have control of the room, Sikander moved to the galley entrance to check on his wounded deckhand. White sat on the deck leaning against an oven, his fatigue shirt pulled open to reveal a blood-soaked wound dressing over his shoulder; Flores knelt beside him, fumbling with the medical pack from her battle-dress utility belt.

  “How are you doing, White?” Sikander asked, kneeling beside him.

  “I’ve been better, sir,” the young deckhand said through gritted teeth. “I’m sorry. Guess I should have ducked faster.”

  “Don’t worry. We’ll take care of you.” Sikander set an encouraging hand on the wounded sailor’s good shoulder, but he didn’t like how pale the young man looked or the amount of blood soaking the bandage. “Do you think you could walk a short distance? Corpsman Chang’s in the orbiter, and I’d like to have her see what she can do for that shoulder. Flores, help him out, please.”

  “I’ll try,” White said. Sikander and Flores helped him to his feet, and Flores propped him up by positioning herself under his good arm.

  “Good man. Flores, take him to the airlock where we came in. Mr. Hollister, I’m sending White and Flores back to the orbiter. Keep an eye on their progress and make sure to warn them if they’re about to run into any Dremish holdouts.”

  “Aye, Captain,” Hollister replied. “They should be okay, sir. I’ve reestablished contact with Orbiter One, and it looks like White and Flores have a clear path to the airlock. And from what I can see here, most of the Dremish on board seem to be moving toward the lifeboat stations—I think they’re taking you up on your offer.”

  “Very well.” But where’s Bleindel? Sikander added silently. Of course, Hollister couldn’t tell from the damage-control system which small blob of body heat and motion belonged to any specific person on board, even if he did have an idea of who Sikander was looking for. Perhaps the Dremish agent had given up too, and was making his way to a lifeboat like the others. He hated the idea of Otto Bleindel slipping away again, but—

  “Captain, I’ve got movement near the bridge,” Hollister suddenly said. “Someone’s in the equipment room one deck below, and it’s not one of ours.”

  * * *

  Sikander heard Bleindel through the closed hatch—low scraping sounds, an awkward metallic clunk, the dull clatter of something dropped on the linoleum-covered deck inside. He paused in the passageway outside, frowning. Clearly the Dremish agent was up to something, and that could mean he was too busy to watch the hatch. On the other hand, Sikander had seen Bleindel in combat before—a shoot-out in a warehouse on Gadira eight years ago. Despite being surprised by a contingent of Royal Guards, Bleindel had reacted swiftly and coolly, escaping in seconds. He wouldn’t be easy to catch off-guard.

  “What’s he doing in there?” Petty Officer Jackson whispered.

  “Nothing that we want him to finish, I’m sure,” Sikander replied, likewise keeping his voice to a whisper. It was just the two of them; he’d reluctantly released the Dremish on the mess deck to find their own way to the nearest lifeboat, hoping that with wounded to look after and their weapons confiscated they wouldn’t make any more mischief for his prize crew. As much as he wanted to confront Otto Bleindel and personally put a mag dart through his head, he recognized that two men going up against an expert combatant in a small room with one door was a terrible risk. Of course, there was the escape scuttle from the bridge … but if there was anything more dangerous than going in through a door watched by a capable enemy, it was descending a ladder into that enemy’s room. Petty Officer Tolbin had the top of the scuttle secured; it seemed much better to Sikander to ensure that Bleindel remained locked out of the bridge than to try for some distraction that required opening that hatch.

  We could wait, he told himself. The inertial nav systems were important, but there were ways to work around their loss if Bleindel sabotaged them. Then again, how do I know he didn’t bring a ten-kilo charge of molecular explosive on board? Or that he isn’t in contact with someone on Neu Kiel who can tell him exactly how to disable a critical bridge function from that space and make sure this ship is unable to get under way? What Otto Bleindel lacked in technical expertise, he more than made up for in resourcefulness and a talent for mayhem. Sikander couldn’t afford to wait him out.

  He looked over at Jackson. “Bleindel is very dangerous. Our only advantage is that he doesn’t know when we’re coming through this door. We’ll use two flash grenades, two seconds apart, and then we’ll go in low—he may retain enough awareness to fire through the doorway after the bang. If you get a shot, take it without hesitation.”

  “Our grenades might do a pretty good job of sabotaging the nav systems in that room, sir,” Jackson pointed out. “We could wind up saving the Dremish the trouble of wrecking the gyroscopes.”

  “That’s an acceptable outcome,” Sikander told him. “I’ll crack the hatch and throw in my grenade. You count to two, then throw in yours. Make sure you look away from the door after you throw your device. After the second explosion, I’ll go in and turn right. You go in and turn left.”

  Jackson nodded. They readied their flash grenades, drawing the safety pins and holding the levers tightly as they crouched beside the hatch. Then Sikander reached up for the handle and popped the hatch open just wide enough to toss his grenade into the room; the comm tech held his for two heartbeats, then threw his grenade in after Sikander’s. A mag-rifle shot pinged against the hatch edge just above Sikander’s head, and—BANG!—the first grenade went off. Sikander readied his battle rifle, and the instant the second grenade detonated, he threw open the hatch and dove in at knee height, scrambling to the right to duck behind a gyroscope casing as he looked for Bleindel—

  —who crouched in a corner behind a two-meter-tall wheeled metal cylinder, a mag pistol pointing at the red-painted canister behind which he was hiding.

  Metallic hydrogen fuel cylinder, Sikander realized. He trained his weapon on Bleindel but did not pull the trigger. “Jackson, hold
your fire!” he shouted. “Don’t hit the cylinder!”

  Bleindel blinked his eyes clear and shook his head. “Commander North,” he said loudly, trying to speak over the ringing in his ears. “Yes, please don’t hit the cylinder unless you wish to ruin everybody’s day. It turns out that there are all kinds of explosives on board a ship undergoing a refit—I found this just down the passageway. I should point out that you nearly blew us all to pieces with those flash grenades.”

  “Damn you, Bleindel,” Sikander snarled. “Lower your weapon and step out from behind that hydrogen, or I swear before God that I’ll put a dart in that cylinder myself. It’s exactly what you deserve.”

  “I’m not sure if a hundred kilos of metallic hydrogen exploding in this compartment would substantially damage the bridge, but I have to imagine it would wreck all the equipment in here,” Bleindel said with a shrug. “I doubt that you’d survive, either. So I suppose you’ll just have to go ahead and shoot.”

  “How exactly do you expect this to play out?” Sikander demanded. “You threaten to blow yourself up unless we surrender the ship to you? You don’t strike me as the type.”

  Bleindel gave him an ironic smile. “In all honesty, I’m still working that out—I’d hoped to set the bomb and be on my way before you interrupted me. Give me a minute or two, and I’ll see whether I can come up with a scenario where nobody else dies and I get what I want.”

  “Captain?” Petty Officer Jackson asked. He crouched behind an equipment cabinet a few meters from Sikander, covering Bleindel with his weapon. “What do we do, sir?”

  Sikander hesitated a moment. The cylinder provided Bleindel with good cover, but it couldn’t protect him completely. He was fairly confident that he could hit the Dremish agent without striking the cylinder, but whether he’d prevent Bleindel from being able to pull the trigger or not … If Darvesh were here, he would remind me that Bleindel does not want to die, he realized. He believes that he’s clever enough to figure a way out of this standoff. That gives me the advantage.