Eades’ lips curved and he fixed his eyes on Kaycie, then gave Avrel a quick glance.
“Yes,” he said, “I shall. The two of you, you see, have shattered any hope of using Minorca’s actions against the Marchant Company. I needed information, boy, not this … fiasco.”
Avrel pondered this for a moment. He’d suspected there was some difficulty due to Eades’ distress, but couldn’t for the life of him figure what it might be. They had the ship, the ship’s officers, and some of the crew as those complicit in the transport of the slaves, added to his own and Kaycie’s testimony and that of the freed spacers themselves.
“We’ve witnesses a’plenty aboard,” he protested, “and all but Captain Morell of the officers and ratings. I don’t see what the trouble is.”
“Neither do I,” Kaycie added. “It all seems nicely wrapped to me. Just a matter of telling our stories.”
“Your stories, yes. You don’t see it at all … no, you don’t.” Eades sighed. “You’re both a bit young to understand how the universe actually works, I suppose.” He held up a hand to forestall their protests. “Let us say, then, that you sail Minorca into Penduli as you intend. Rush to the station master, I suppose, or did you plan on going straight to the Naval offices and the port admiral?” He shook his head. “No matter.
“Once the matter’s brought to the authorities, two things will happen. First, you two and all those you don’t have locked up will be charged with mutiny.” He held up his hand again at their protests, adding a “tut” sound to emphasize it, which drew narrowed eyes from Kaycie. “Charges will be brought. You did, after all, take the ship from her rightful captain, there can be no doubt of that, and, yes, there may be some justification to it, but that will be a matter for the court to decide, do you see?”
Avrel nodded and, after a moment, so did Kaycie. He did see that. A ship whose captain had been deposed would see the crew tried for mutiny, no matter the circumstances — those charges might not result in conviction, depending on the circumstances, but there’d be charges nonetheless.
Eades appeared satisfied that they understood that, at least.
“And so,” he continued, “this will now become the testimony of accused mutineers against their former captain and officers. Mutineers and pirates, as those who weren’t properly part of Minorca’s crew will be charged with piracy.”
Avrel realized Eades was talking about the rescued spacers, and moved to object, but Kaycie was nodding.
“Yes,” she said, “there will be charges, won’t there … as many as can be thought of.”
“Ah,” Eades said with a sad smile. “Miss Overfield is not, perhaps, so naive as I thought the both of you were.”
“But —”
“The courts work for Marchant, Jon,” Kaycie said softly. “We’ve both seen that, haven’t we? Whether directly bought or only because the laws favor the powerful by nature … they work toward Marchant’s interests and those interests are for all those who took Minorca to be painted black as pitch.” She nodded to Eades. “The station master?”
“A lovely vacation home in Penduli’s Lakes District. Far beyond his means, I’m given to understand.”
Kaycie nodded. “And the port admiral?”
“Admiral Fitzsimon Ashwill. Strong Naval ties in that family … those not in merchant service, that is.”
“I see. Merchant service with …”
“Exactly.”
“They’re everywhere, aren’t they?” Kaycie asked.
Eades sat back in his chair and sighed. “Indeed.”
“But the Marchants are in the slave trade,” Avrel protested. “When that comes out —”
“How will it come out?” Eades asked.
Avrel saw that Kaycie was nodding along with Eades, but didn’t see it himself. What did they understand that he didn’t? “We’ve a shipload of spacers who’ll bloody shout it to all who’ll listen!”
“What is it you see that our young friend does not, Miss Overfield?”
Kaycie closed her eyes as though pained. “Morell.”
Eades nodded.
“Yes,” Avrel agreed. “He commanded Minorca, took on the cargo of slaves, transported them, and he works for the Marchants. It’s their ship! He was their man!”
“Morell is dead.” Eades said flatly. “And the Marchants, as they have in the past, will claim he was simply a rogue captain.” Eades’ voice took on a tone of righteous indignation. “‘We cannot police every action of every captain of every ship,’ they will say … again. ‘Were Captain Morell alive, he would be dismissed from our service forthwith and his pension forfeit, as an example to all our captains that actions outside the kingdom’s laws will in no way be tolerated.’” Eades shrugged. “That is the arrangement, I’m sure, between these captains and the Company. Follow orders and you will grow wealthy, disavowal if you are caught. And some promise of wealth or threat to their loved ones to maintain their silence, certainly.”
Avrel thought he caught a note of recitation in Eades’ tone as well, as though the words had been heard by him far more than once.
“The Marchant Company has an extraordinary number of rogue captains, you see. Had Morell been taken alive, he might have some evidence, some instruction, which could implicate those higher up in the Company.”
“But —”
Kaycie drained her glass. “The best we could hope for is that Morell alone would be condemned as a slaver, the worst would be that we ourselves are convicted of mutiny. And Morell is beyond justice now.”
Eades nodded. Avrel almost thought his face held some sympathy.
“There is, I’m afraid, no benefit at all to your returning to a New London system. No benefit at all, and far too great a risk, I’m afraid.”
Avrel struggled to understand. He’d been prepared for a triumphant return — rescued spacers and evidence against the Marchant’s foul deeds. Now it was all crashing down.
“This can’t be,” he whispered.
Both Eades and Kaycie were silent, as though giving him time to accept what they already understood.
“What do we do, then?” he asked finally.
“You must return to the Barbary,” Eades said.
“What? Why there?”
“Because it is the only place where you won’t be taken up as mutineers and pirates. The word’s already spread from those crewmen you released on Kuriyya, and Minorca’s identity is now well known throughout the border systems. To the Republic, as well, even Hanover — the Marchant reach is long, at least when there’s no war on, and I’d expect you’ll be wanted in Hso-hsi as well, before too much time has passed. They’ll have put a rather large price on your head, you see?”
“They can’t do that,” Avrel whispered.
Kaycie laid a hand on his shoulder and squeezed hard.
“We’re done, Jon,” she whispered. “You can see that.”
Eades nodded. “Attacking the Marchants is not lightly done, nor quickly. I’ve been building a case for years, dozens of informants and hundreds of documented instances of their wrong-doing.” He glared at Avrel. “Now there’ll be loose talk of these events in the Barbary and they’ll tighten their ship.” He sighed. “I wasn’t bloody ready, boy.”
Avrel flushed. It was his fault, then, that the Marchants wouldn’t be brought down by this? No, he couldn’t accept that. The alternative would have been to let all those folk, New London spacers, the women from Vólkerhausen, and those from the Barbary alike, be sent off into slavery — Kaycie herself, perhaps, as who knew what would have happened to her if she were put in-atmosphere on Kuriyya with no ship.
No. He’d not accept that. One did the right thing and bugger the cost to something larger. There was no justification to have let those men and women be set upon Kuriyya, and he’d not take the blame for the Marchant’s power over New London.
“So, it’s back to the Barbary, then,” he muttered.
“And what you’ll do there, I’ve no idea,” Eades said.
He took a deep breath. “I’ll try to help you, from time to time, as I may, but you’ll be well-advised to keep clear of the Marchants.”
Avrel flushed again, this time with anger. The law would never bring them down, would it? The Marchants would never see justice for what they’d done. His jaw was tight and he raised his gaze to meet Kaycie’s. She seemed to read something in that as their eyes met, for she smiled, thin-lipped though it be, and nodded.
“I’ve a ship, Mister Eades,” Avrel said. “Two, if I can find Dary and Fancy, as well as guns and a crew with blood in their eye and on their minds.” He met Eades’ eye and, for the first time, it seemed it was the Foreign Office man who saw something in that gaze to chill him, instead of the other way around.
“We’ll see who has the need to keep clear, shall we?”
Smuggler
SMUGGLER
Spacer, Smuggler, Pirate, Spy #2
by J.A. Sutherland
Copyright 2018 Sutherland. All rights reserved.
Created with Vellum
One
Avrel Dansby was not, on the whole of it, fond of running.
He understood some liked it for the dubious health benefits, but thought one could get very nearly the same effects from an hour or two of randiness between the sheets — and come out far ahead in the equation.
He did not even like running aboard ship, where it consisted mostly of staying in one place within a nicely controlled environment.
In-atmosphere on a planet, especially one like Keldworth Heath, he liked it even less.
Keldworth Heath’s sun was low overhead, but already bright white and seemingly three times the size of any he’d seen before, baking the streets of this spaceport town to a temperature far from controlled.
He was soaked in sweat and now, several kilometers into his run, covered in dust, both what his feet kicked up from the dry, dusty street and where he’d fallen more than once in the kilometer across uneven ground from his client’s compound in the nearby hills. Most of the dust from the fall when they shot his horse had since been shaken off and replaced with new, or ground straight through the material of his jumpsuit so as to mix with the sweat covering his skin beneath.
His lungs felt like they might burst and he added Keldworth Heath’s decidedly low oxygen to his growing list of complaints about the world.
But all those things would be moot in a mere half kilometer, when he reached his ship’s boat and lifted from this Dark-forsaken planet to return to space. Getting to that boat and returning to space was the whole purpose of this most uncomfortable and unpleasant bit of running.
The sharp crack of ionizing air sounded beside his head and a barely visible bolt of laser light twinkled past to strike the corner of a building ahead of him. Bits of charred wood flew off and the people on the street, who’d been watching him curiously as he ran through their town, ducked back against buildings and into doorways.
Well, there’s that, too, Dansby thought, luckily they’re —
He turned to check on his pursuers who’d been nearly three hundred meters behind him since he’d shot the last of their horses back in the hills. They were now all piled into a cart drawn by a new horse and, with no further need to run themselves, found the leisure to engage in the other pastime they’d taken up.
Another laser flashed past with crack of ionizing air.
Where’d they get a bloody cart?
He turned his attention back to his running, redoubling his efforts, despite the shortness of breath and burning legs.
At least the cart was wheeled and not antigrav, else they’d have a stable platform to shoot from. Must have grabbed it from some townsperson — a shabby thing to do, but not unexpected for those louts, working as they did for his former client.
Dansby didn’t consider himself to have worked for the man, not as an employee, at least, since it was a single commission for a single job he’d been hired for, and that by an intermediary.
Ahead, nearly there, was the edge of the landing field, with just a few buildings fronting it to cater to the spacers off the occasional visiting ships.
All his own crew were back aboard ship, revels, what they could make with the town’s single pub, a room upstairs to make due as a house of ease, and few other ships in-system for them to brawl with, at an end. They’d been nearly ready to sail after making their delivery when the client had called to ask if they might be interested in another job.
So Dansby’d come down with —
Another laser flashed by him, this one close enough to singe the arm of his shirt and sear the flesh beneath.
“Kaycie!” Dansby yelled, knowing he was still too far from the boat, which was nearly a hundred meters away still and just become visible. Sound didn’t carry as far in Keldworth Heath’s thin atmosphere. He yelled again anyway, despite the protestations from his lungs, “Kaycie!”
The boat’s ramp was down, so he had only to make these hundred meters — less, then up the ramp, and there were weapons racked inside. His own pistol was long-discarded, back in the hills when he’d run out of ammunition to fire at his pursuers and decided the weight was too much of a burden.
He could hear the rumble of the cart horse’s hooves, a bad sign, but didn’t turn to check how close they were, merely put his head down and ran, screaming as much as he could.
“Kaycie! Kaycie! Buggerit, get out here you daft —”
Crack!
That shot had more the sound of chemical propellants than ionized air and it jerked Dansby’s head up just as two more sounded quickly after.
Crack! Crack!
All at once the cart and horse, which had sounded nearly on his heels and, he saw now, had indeed been so, swerved by to his right, no longer trying to run him down now that the cart’s driver slumped in his seat and the reins draped loose. The shooter sprawled likewise, arms wide and draped over the cart’s seat.
“Good shooting, lass,” Dansby panted, racing up the boat’s ramp and slapping the button to raise it behind him. “Now we must lift, I’m afraid!”
“Jon! What’ve you gotten us into now?” Kaycie demanded, following him to the cockpit. “Why were they chasing you? Wanting to shoot you I can understand, but the chasing bit seems more effort than you’re generally worth.”
Dansby did wish she’d use his alias and not so casually bandy about the name he’d been born to and which held so very much baggage for him.
“A bit of a kerfuffle with that Wilmott and the job proposition,” Dansby said, ignoring her use of his former name. He slipped into the boat’s pilot seat and tapped the console. The ramp was nearly up, so he set the boat to lifting and silenced the ensuing alarms. There was nothing in the cargo compartment that might spew out — or nothing he’d wait another moment to save, in any case.
Kaycie slid into the copilot’s seat to his right and glared at him. “And what are you about, calling me ‘daft’ and what was the next word you planned? I’ll not take your guff, Jon Bartlett.”
Dansby winced. “I’m sorry. Heat of the moment — I was a bit excited. I do wish you’d not bandy that name about, though.”
“In private, I’ll call you by your proper name and not —” She waved a hand at him. “— whoever you’ve become. Perhaps it will serve to remind you of who you really are.”
Dansby turned back to his console, letting out a deep breath of the proper atmosphere that was filling the boat now it was sealed.
“You’d best buckle up,” he said.
Kaycie glanced from him, to the clear sky visible through the viewscreen, with not a storm in sight between them and orbit, then back to Dansby, who was busy buckling his own belts, though he rarely used them.
She buckled her own straps, not taking her eyes from him.
“Excitement is no reason to be calling me names, Jon. I’m not one of the crew and you’re no bosun — we’re captain and first officer, and —” She shook her head. “Never mind, you’d call your own mother a daft bint in the heat o
f the moment these days.”
Dansby winced, both from his mother being lost to him, sent to the Fringe worlds as an indenture over his family’s debts, and because Kaycie was likely right. He’d been acting more the bosun than the captain lately, with all the crew.
“Sorry,” Kaycie said. “We’ll talk of this later. Why didn’t you just call me with your tablet?”
“Wilmott took my tablet,” Dansby said.
He checked the chronometer on his console and swung the boat about to face back up into the hills toward Wilmott’s compound. Now that they were aloft, Keldworth Heath had nothing that could stop his boat. Perhaps if they brought every aircraft they had to bear, but those were nearly all cargo haulers and no match for an armed ship’s boat. He could spare the few minutes to see his handiwork done.
Kaycie took a deep breath.
“If we’re going to hang about here all buckled up, would you at least tell me why?” she asked.
Dansby cleared his throat.
“Well, you recall we thought our cargo for Wilmott was a bit odd?”
“Yes, such a large shipment of asteroid mining charges for such a new colony — they’ve no space industry to speak of yet, barely gotten their planetside mines started. And no hint of some resource valuable enough to rush it.”
“Aye,” Dansby said, “but Wilmott wouldn’t be the first colonist to outgrow his britches and think he could turn a profit in vacuum before the infrastructure’s there. And so many charges … well, all the better to avoid duty and tax stamps on, yes? Especially if the mine output might not find its way to a proper, taxable, market.” He took another deep breath, relishing full lungs and wondering how the Keldworth Heath colonists managed with the thin air. “Well, Wilmott has other uses for them and for the next cargo he’s after.”
Kaycie raised her brow to prompt him.
“Arms,” Dansby said, “and ammunition. Quite a lot of both.”
“Bugger it,” Kaycie muttered.
Spacer, Smuggler, Pirate, Spy Box Set Page 14