by Tom Shepherd
“Please prepare to be boarded. I will take the problem off your very busy hands.”
“Our docking ports are inoperable,” Tyler said. “Give me thirty minutes and I’ll comply.”
Tsuchiya’s face showed no hint of displeasure. “Your airlocks are in perfect working order. Perhaps your maintenance chief, Paco Ramón Léon, has repaired them without telling you.”
Does this asshole know which side of the bed Suzie sleeps on, too?
“Give me a moment to confer with my brother.” He muted the conversation. “Son of a bitch.”
“Ty, I know your hero, Patrick Henry, vowed liberty or death,” J.B. said. “But we need to avoid situations where those are the only options.”
“Tell that to Sakura House.” He unmuted the commo.
“Take ten minutes to consider your actions,” Tsuchiya said. “The cube rightfully belongs to me. If you refuse to return my property, you will force me to make unpleasant choices. The item I seek can be plucked from a debris field.”
“No problemo. We surrender. I’ll use those ten minutes to inform my crew.” Tyler signaled Suzie to cut off the transmission.
“Captain, the Nagoto has activated a tractor beam,” Parvati said. “She grips us tightly.”
“They are also jamming long-range communications,” Suzie said.
Tyler grunted. “How rude.”
“Suzie, can we punch through with Apexcom?” J.B. said.
“Blimey, I don’t think so. This is the most powerful dampening field I’ve yet encountered.” As the AI program serving as Main Library Computer for Tyler’s now-destroyed Sioux City and later the Patrick Henry itself, Suzie had accessed communications systems in civilizations all over the galaxy. If this was new to her, that spoke volumes.
“Giving him the cube is the smart thing to do,” J.B. said.
Tyler shook his head. “I’m not giving him shit.”
J.B. threw up his hands. “Why not? He’s going to kill us.”
“Couple of reasons. Tsuchiya is not the Prodigal’s forgiving father. Kichirou was the youngest of three sons, but his father favored him. Kiki-san repaid his Otōsan by losing the Alpha Gate battle and absconding to Andromeda. Only Abuela’s intervention saved Kiki-san from death when the Sioux City’s nukes exploded in his cargo bay. I don’t know how his father found out about the stasis cube.”
Suzie said, “He has a spy at M-double-I.”
“A good one,” Tyler agreed.
“If Kichirou dishonored his father,” J.B. said, “why does Tsuchiya want him back? Like you said, he still has two sons—Kaito and Haruto.”
“Haruto-san runs the business. He’s the eldest,” Tyler said.
J.B. nodded. “Kaito is the middle son. And a lawyer.”
“I’m betting Tsuchiya-sama wants to destroy the cube to get rid of Kichirou, his defective seed,” Tyler said, “Hideki-sama doesn’t care if he snuffs out thousands of people trapped inside Abuela’s cube.”
“Is that such a great loss? They’re all pirates,” J.B. said.
“Rodney was aboard that ship, remember?” Suzie said. “It’s a bloody miracle he got away, and only because I shanghaied ginger boy after the idiot hopped aboard. Your brilliant engineer had no clue he’d signed aboard a pirate fleet. Thought he was patrolling the Rim, looking for ships flying the skull and crossbones. He flatly rejected Arabella’s first attempt to sort things out between Rodney and reality. But we hired him.”
“C’mon, J.B.,” Tyler said. “How many other inocentes sailed with the Yamato? Where’s your Thomas Merton doppelgänger when I need him?”
J.B. sighed. “Tyler—”
“Second reason we don’t give up the stasis cube. When he gets it, Tsuchiya will kill us.”
“He promised to—”
“Why is he blocking long range comms? Does he think we can call M-double-I to rescue us? We’re days away from our fleet.”
Suzie nodded. “Tying up loose ends. No witnesses, no evidence.”
J.B. held up empty hands. “Maybe we can negotiate.“
“That treacherous motherfucker killed our great-grandfather.”
J.B. gasped. “How do you know that?”
“Abuela, the alien entity from Andromeda, told Suzie and me. Tsuchiya hired ninjas to steal high tech and eliminate his chief rival.”
Suzie nodded. “It’s true, Jerry.”
“Too long ago for Hideki Tsuchiya to order the murder,” J.B. said.
“He’s been taking the Zyn-Vorkan elixir for a century. His real age is one-fifty-plus. Number one son, Haruto, is as old as our dad. Tsuchiya contracted the hit to steal Abuela’s capsule. Still want to negotiate with that pendejo?”
“All right. What’s your plan?”
Tyler turned to Parvati. “Has he powered weapons, raised shields?”
The Indian helmswoman shook her head, “Not yet, Captain.”
“Why bother? ” J.B. said. “He knows we’re toothless.”
“The Patrick Henry may be a pleasure barge, but we’re carrying a pair of attack dogs. The Legal Beagle is an armed corvette, and the Jackknife is an expandable fighter packing serious firepower.”
“Positively brilliant,” Suzie said. “Like a Russian Matryoshka doll. Fighter, inside corvette, inside unarmed cruise ship.”
Tyler half-smiled. “I was thinking turducken, but I like yours better.”
“And Rodney made the boat deck impervious to scanning!” J.B. clapped his hands. “Engineering, please tell me the anti-intrusion holo-projectors are up and running?”
“Yes, sir!” Lt. Rooney said.
Suzie laughed. “Bravo for Arabella’s giddy kipper.”
Tyler put the whole crew on open mike. “Listen up, folks. We are going to tweak the Shōgun’s nose and kick him in the balls. Suzie and J.B. will fly the Beagle. Rodney, crawl into the Jackknife. Once the corvette clears the Henry’s boat deck, launch the fighter.”
“That will put two fighting ships in play,” J.B. said. “But Tsuchiya has massive firepower. We won’t last long.”
“Don’t hang around long enough to get target-locked,” Tyler said. “You and Suzie go after his FTL package. Rodney, take out the Nagoto’s tractor capability. Break their grasp on the Henry so we can get away. One attack run. Everybody fires everything they’ve got. Then light-plus. We rendezvous in four hours, an arbitrary point outside the Mandela system, two million kilometers from Jump Gate Teri.”
“Lt. Rooney needs another human aboard.” Rosalie stood up at her cultural-linguist post, half a deck above. “I’ll fly the Jackknife while Rodney shoots out the tractor package.”
“Let me think a moment,” Tyler said uneasily. Rosalie was a force of nature in a firefight, but she had little experience flying a spacecraft, let alone a fighter. The micro-compressed, expandable Jackknife had zero holo-capability, and she required two crew members.
“Do you have anybody else who’s pilot qualified and not a hologram?” Rosalie said.
“I’ll fly with Rodney,” Suzie said. “Put Arabella in the Beagle’s XO seat beside J.B.”
“Don’t rescue me, Suzie,” Rosalie said brusquely.
“Then don’t let your ego get you killed. You’re not ready, luv.”
“Suzie’s right,” Tyler told his sister. “You can fly the Henry with me.”
She sighed. “Promise me real flight time?”
“You’ll take us to FTL.” Besides, I don’t want to survive this faceoff, then get killed by Mom for losing her only daughter.
Rosalie took a breath, accepting her fate. “At least I’ll be able to take care of Lucy.”
“We have one shot at this,” J.B. said. “Soon as Tsuchiya realizes he’s under attack, the Nagoto raises shields and opens fire.”
“We hit him hard, then run for our lives,” Suzie said.
Tyler had a worrisome thought. “By my recollection, you’ve been in human form over a day. How long until you need extended internal time?”
She paused t
o calculate. “My bioenergetic matrix is stable. I can stay in human form another twenty-three hours.”
“Don’t want to risk locking you external.” Tyler shook his head. “We don’t know how long this escape plan will take, and the Jackknife’s computer can’t support your program.”
She smiled. “Don’t get your knickers in a twist, luv. If I’m outside longer than a day, it probably means they’ve caught me bang to rights.”
“Try to avoid that, please.” Tyler addressed the whole crew via shipwide comms. “Chief Léon and Inspector Platte, suit up for explosive decompression and meet me on the boat deck. Standby to launch the Beagle. Parvati, you’re J.B.’s helmswoman. Pull a few holo-crew from the MLC and give them engineering and weapons skills. Let’s do this, folks!”
A chorus of “Yes, sir!” echoed through the ship.
“Yumiko, report to the bridge.” Tyler shook his head. I’d rather sue than fight, but here we go.
Five
Yumiko Matsuda—Star Lawyers’ Security officer and First Wife of attorney Zenna-Zenn, also known as Mr. Blue—sat in the command chair with Rosalie Matthews in the XO seat beside her. Matsuda was no starship officer, but she understood the Shōgun better than anyone aboard, and Rosalie was also fluent in Japanese.
“Incoming message,” Parvati said.
“Please open the link,” Yumiko said. She switched to highly honorific, classical Japanese. “Tsuchiya-sama, how is your health today?”
“As usual, very good, Yumiko. Where is Tyler Matthews?”
“Forgive me, Shōgun, however my Captain has ordered me to tell you he is presently indisposed. He said I should convey his deep regrets, but he cannot be on the bridge.”
“Ah, so? What keeps a courageous man like Tyler Matthews from his place of duty?”
“He said it was a delicate complication, due to bad ingestibles from the food dispenser.”
“That is very regrettable. He seemed quite healthy when we spoke a few minutes ago.”
“These matters come up quickly, Tsuchiya-sama.”
Tsuchiya laughed politely. “Indeed, they do. However, my boarding parties cannot wait while your captain attends to bodily functions.”
“Of course. Please send your men to the starboard airlock,” Yumiko said with a delicate word choice, indicating subservient acquiescence, only possible in honorific Japanese.
“We will dock at both port and starboard, if that is acceptable.”
“You honor us with your patience, kenjin. The airlock will be available in five minutes.”
Rosalie snickered softly. Yumi-san had called the old bastard kenjin, wise one.
Tsuchiya picked up on the word immediately. “It would be unwise to delay beyond that time. Nagoto out.”
Rosalie grinned at the female samurai. “That was some smooth bullshit, Yumi-san.”
Officer Matsuda nodded briskly. “He is not a man of honor.”
Rosalie turned to Myong Li. “Do you have the package of escape vectors calculated?”
“Yes, ma’am. Ten billion randomized options. I am ready to rotate the plotted route, every hundredth of a second, on command.” Myong Li had computed enough course changes to switch their getaway direction every .01 seconds for 3.17 years.
“Do it,” Rosalie said. “Let Tsuchiya’s sensors eat that bundle of algorithms for lunch.”
* * * *
On the Henry’s boat deck, eleven levels below the bridge, J.B. and Arabella and others assigned to crew the Beagle took their places, while in the corvette’s crowded cargo bay Suzie and Rodney climbed into the sports car-sized, expandable fighter which J.B. had named the Jackknife.
The Beagle sealed and pressurized for deep space, carrying the equally prepared Jackknife within her. Tyler, Demarcus Platte, and Chief Paco Léon—in EVA gear with magnetized boots—clomped around the corvette-class ship to release her deck moorings. Tyler signaled “thumbs up” and two holographic crew members, Africa-black Zalika and Scandinavian blonde Ulrika, grasped the Beagle stern and aft. Eight additional holographic females took position along the port and starboard sides of the small starship.
Paco cut the gravity and the Beagle lifted off the deck.
Ordinarily, neither human nor hologram could lift the thirty-five meter, four deck corvette, but at zero gravity the problem became inertia rather than weight. Getting that much mass to move under control required precise pressure and counter pressure on all sides. Demarcus walked backwards, giving left and right hand signals to the holographic crew surrounding her, as Tyler’s makeshift deck hands floated the ship to the large cargo door aft of the cargo bay.
When the corvette was in place, Tyler, Platte and Chief Leon moved to a control panel, well forward of the Beagle, and secured themselves to the deck with reinforced cables. The holograms needed no moorings, since they were projections of the Patrick Henry, tied to the vessel by cords of photonic energy.
Now it was up to Rosalie and Yumiko.
* * * *
With Parvati aboard the Beagle, Ensign Sarnai took her place at the helm. Sarnai was a Northeast Asian with midnight black hair, re-programmed from forensic tech to helmswoman. She nodded to Yumiko and Rosalie, who occupied the command chairs.
“Sarnai-san, I am ready to speak,” Yumiko said. “Please set your language index at Terran and Japanese.”
“Hai, Okusama.” Sarnai opened the comm link to the Nagoto.
“Tsuchiya-sama, our apologies for these unavoidable delays. Now we are ready to receive your boarding party,” Yumiko said.
Rosalie pointed at Sarnai and mouthed, “Go.”
The Patrick Henry dropped five hundred meters from her former location. Tsuchiya’s tractor beam intensified to compensate, but Tyler’s plan never intended to break free with gyrations.
Rosalie spoke in Terran. “Oh, rats! What an idiot I am. Sorry about that, Señor Tsuchiya.”
“You were instructed to prepare for boarding, Miss Matthews.”
“I’m kinda new to the controls of a big starship like the Henry. Gosh, I can’t imagine how hard it must be to pilot a behemoth like the Nagoto.”
Talk to me, you cocksucker. I need to stall your smug ass until Tyler gets the little birds launched.
“Please hold your position,” Tsuchiya said.
“Of course! My brother will be here in a skosh.” There you go, an Anglicized-Terran word from the Japanese sukoshi.
“My boarding parties approach your airlocks again. Do not move.”
“Hai, kenjin,” Yumiko said. “Forgive our mistake.”
At that instant the aft hatch of the Henry’s boat deck snapped open, venting atmosphere. Unsecured tools, hidden trash, and the corvette Legal Beagle blew into the starry vacuum of space. Veteran sailors irreverently called the hot-launch procedure shitting a starship.
As the Beagle tumbled away from its parent ship, the corvette repeated the venting and the Jackknife emerged. But the tiny ship had qualities especially built for a situation like this, which Rodney Rooney had christened dynamic expansion.
The Jackknife cleared the Beagle and immediately swelled from lifeboat to heavy cutter. She deployed two FTL nacelles, weapons turrets with laser cannon, and multiple launchers equipped with thermal missiles.
And the Beagle packed even more firepower.
Yumiko abandoned the command chair when Tyler stepped from the lift. He was still in EVA gear, helmet under arm. He dropped the headgear on the deck and took the Captain’s seat.
A startled Hideki Tsuchiya glared at him from the viewscreen.
“You will regret—”
Rosalie cut him off. “He’s a bigger jerk than Kichirou.”
Tyler toggled the assorted viewscreens through visual images of the Beagle and Jackknife blasting their targets. Tsuchiya lost FTL in the first seconds of their surprise attack.
“He’s raising shields. Weapons lock,” Myong Li said.
“Shields to maximum,” Tyler said. “Tap all power but the FTL mains and life suppo
rt.”
“Yes, sir.”
“The Beagle has gone to FTL,” Ensign Sarnai said.
Tsuchiya’s main guns fired into the Patrick Henry’s shield array. A lesser defended ship would have disappeared in a puff of debris, but this vessel had been designed to evade capture by shield and speed. The hits jarred the ship, aft to stern, but the shields held. Tsuchiya’s gunners blasted away, while holding the Henry in a tractor grip. It was like shooting a dog on a leash.
“Shields at sixty-three percent,” Ensign Myong Li said. “Dropping steadily. We have thirty seconds until defensive screen failure.”
“Look!” Rosalie said. “The Jackknife is inside the Nagoto’s shield envelope. They can’t shoot at her.”
The little attack ship curled around the Nagoto a few meters off the surface of the battleship. Too close for onboard weapons to target the cutter as she streaked past gun turrets.
“Come on, Suzie,” Tyler muttered. “Get the tractors and let’s go.”
The Jackknife launched a barrage of missiles, which rose a few hundred meters and dove to the surface, impacting on the tractor beam emitters. A fiery, silent explosion flared and died in airless space.
“Tractor release,” Sarnai reported.
“FTL now!” Rosalie said.
“Belay that order,” Tyler said.
“Ty, we gotta go.”
“Captain?” Ensign Sarnai said.
“We must go!” Rosalie insisted.
“But Suzie, the Jackknife—”
“Shields at eight percent,” Myong Li said.
Rosalie grasped his arm. “Tsuchiya will kill all of us. Break free and go. Those were your orders!”
Tyler spoke in short gasps. “I can’t. She’ll die.”
“Think of your crew—Esteban and Julieta, Mr. Blue, Lovey Frost, Yumiko, Demarcus Platte and Paco and Dorla Léon, all the holograms.”
“I’m not leaving Suzie.”
“You’re being an idiot!”
“Shields at two percent,” Sarnai said. “Collapse imminent.”
Tyler grasped his head with both hands and bent forward. “There must be something we can do.”