by Allan Cole
“He’s the greatest unknown,” Doc said. “A True Believer. And if there was anything in this incarnation more dangerous than a True Believer, they’d weaponize it.”
“What exactly do those clots believe in?” Ida asked. “And do we care?”
“As near as I can tell, after skimming over this drakh,” Doc said, indicating a research fiche, “The Church of the Universal Location is sort of like Celestial Acupuncture. They do elaborate calculations—accompanied by all kinds of ceremonial garbage native to their culture—to determine so-called perfect locations in the Universe.”
Sten’s eyebrows rose. “Perfect,” he said. “I’ve never heard of anything that was perfect.”
Doc made a rude noise. “No drakh,” he said. “Especially since they are human. There are few species less perfect than homo clotting sapiens.”
Kilgour started to protest, but Sten shot him a warning look. It was no time to get into a squabble with Doc.
Doc continued. “What makes them ‘perfect’ escapes me. I’m sure there is some imagined deity behind it all. There usually is. But so far I haven’t found a mention of the clot’s holy name. More than likely it is forbidden to say it aloud, or even write it down.”
Doc gave a weary sigh. Fished out a bottle of his favorite hemo tonic—the blood of some poor critter native to home planet, Ceres III, that his kind had hunted to near extinction. The little bottle had probably cost him a small fortune. He took a long swig. Smacked his lips. Then returned to the subject at hand.
“Naturally,” he said, “there is one location more perfect than all others.” He shrugged. “Heaven, if you will.”
“I clottin’ will not,” Ida said. “If there’s a clottin’ Heaven, there’s has to be a Hell. And if there’s a Hell, I am in deep, deep drakh.” She snorted. “And here I am, barely into my third decade of so-called life and bound for Hell. So, let’s leave clottin’ heaven, and freakin’ Hell out of the discussion, if you don’t mind.”
Sten laughed. “You know, Doc,” he said, “your description of this religion sounds like a never-ending search for bumps in space. More like celestial phrenology than acupuncture.”
Alex shook his head in mock sorrow. “Ach, to the likes of me it ’pears thae back afore th’ Stone Age, some puir mammy must’ve dropped her wee bairn on its head.”
Doc waved a furry little paw and Shaklin’s dossier vanished. A split screen popped up showing Zheng and Rual.
Alex grimaced. “Thae Zheng bugger looks like a bloody toad,” he said. “Guid fur clottin’ naethin’ but huntin’ flies.”
“Don’t let his looks fool you,” Doc said. “He’s been in and out of prison half his life. Wanted in a dozen places all over the Empire.”
“What for?” Sten asked.
“Zheng specializes in kidnapping,” Doc said. “He started with someone’s child when he was barely a child himself. Then he graduated to gravbus loads of tourists. He was never above killing a few hostages to hurry things along, so he was fairly successful—until it all caught to him and he had to flee. The Maritime Service made a wonderful hiding place.”
Sten shook his head. He’d heard tales about the low standards in the Imperial merchant fleet, but he had no idea that wanted criminals could clog dance past Personnel into responsible shipboard positions.
“Well, now Zheng’s gone and kidnapped himself a whole clotting space-train,” Ida said. “No more small stuff.”
“What about her?” Sten said, indicating Rual. “Does she have a criminal background as well?”
Doc shrugged. “Nothing like Zheng. Her offenses were mainly for—quote…grievous bodily assault and maiming…end quote…plus an unproven murder or three. She’s got a temper and a long knife always at the ready.”
Doc chuckled. Sten had noted over time that few things gave their resident shrink greater pleasure than discussing psychopaths. The more murderous, the more blood spilled, the better.
As if stirred by thoughts of all that flowing hemoglobin, Doc sighed wistfully, then took another hit off his bottle of hemo.
“Apparently she is an addicted gambler,” he continued. “And a dangerously sore loser. She’ll do anything—and I stress anything—to feed that habit. Lie, rob, even kill. It is my educated guess that her compulsion—and inability to handle loss—made her an ideal target for the machinations of Mutineer Number Three: Sr. Zheng.”
Doc waved a paw and the three all appeared together, with Zheng in the center.
“In summary,” Doc said, “Zheng’s a born leader. He’s a superior organizer. A master at defusing, or creating conflict among his crew members—whichever serves his purpose. Supporting all that, he has the ability to choose a goal and then stick with it at all cost.”
He indicated Rual. “She’s a born follower. Intensely loyal. Murderously volatile, so she probably has the other mutineers urinating in their under garments whenever her temper explodes. It’s my prog that Zheng has her on a short leash, which he’s likely to let loose if anyone crosses him. Naturally, this not only keeps the crew under his thumb—or her knife—but they probably admire him more. Foolishly arousing their trust in his ability to negotiate for them.”
Sten shook his head. “Talk about a recipe for disaster,” he said.
“There it is,” Doc said. “Plus, we must keep in mind that Zheng is under tremendous pressure. If one thing goes wrong, the crew will turn on him, and even Rual won’t be able to stop them. He’s in hurry to make a deal and get as far away from the others as he can.”
“So, he’ll be wanting safe passage,” Sten said, “as well as amnesty.”
“Count on it,” Doc said.
“Which brings us back to Shaklin,” Sten said.
“Yes, Shaklin,” Doc said. “He’s both their weakest link and their strongest link. Weak because money is the least of his motives for joining the mutiny. One of our snitches back at Chinen reported that he holds Gregor responsible for the death of his lover, Pegatha. Sten’s favorite scrote’s habit of skimping on repairs and pocketing the money led to equipment failure at a crucial time, killing her.”
He glanced at his report, then looked up and smacked his lips with unseemly gusto. Unseemly for anyone except a fellow Blyrchynaus, that is. “I understand it was a rather messy accident. Blood and gore everywhere.”
Sten pushed past the sick feeling that Doc’s habits sometimes aroused in him. “In other words,” he said, “without the death of Pegatha, he might not have joined the mutiny.”
“Exactly,” Doc said. “And without Shaklin the mutiny would failed before it even began. Making him their strongest link. Because without his navigating and pilot skills, the mutineers have no bargaining power. One false move by an opponent and he’ll jump the Flame, cargo train and all, to the other side of the Empire.”
With that bit of intel, light dawned for them.
Sten said, “Otherwise Venatora would have boarded their ship long ago, cut their throats, and made off with the cargo.”
“Who would’t think sech a bony lass hae so much murder in her breast?” Alex mourned.
Sten thought about his last meeting with Venatora. Yes, he’d seen murder glittering in her eyes. But also something else. Something…
He shivered and forced himself back to the present.
But Ida caught it. “Wet dreaming about your lady love, are you dear?” she purred.
With great difficulty, Sten ignored her. “I think Mahoney’s first idea still holds,” he said. “We push them. Gently. But firmly. See how they react. Make them nervous. Then we throw them an olive branch.”
“Wi’ a bester grenade attached,” Kilgour said.
Sten sighed. As usual, Alex was spot on. Then he braced himself and sent word to Captain W’lson.
It was time to bring the crew and officers of the Flame up to date. And it would take all his newly won s
kills at diplomacy—Mantis style—to bring it off.
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
INVITATION TO A STEW POT
“To start with,” Sten said, “we’re going to put the frighteners on them. If we do it right, when we pop up on their vid there won’t be a clean pair of skivvies on the ship.”
His eyes swept over the faces of the assembled officers of the Jo’l Cash, pausing just long enough to look into the eyes of each to make sure he had their full attention.
He stopped at Captain W’lson, who was clearly uncomfortable in a subordinate role. Beside her, Mk’wolf was paying close attention to Sten’s every word.
“But here’s the main thing,” Sten continued. “Yes, we want spook them. But not so much that they take to their heels.”
W’lson frowned. “But if they run,” she said, “We need to be ready to give chase. We can’t give them time to jump.”
Behind him, Sten heard Alex mutter a curse—but in a brogue so thick that W’lson was unlikely to take offense if she heard it.
“Negative,” Sten said. “First off, we have to keep in mind that we have their navigators to deal with.”
W’lson snorted derision. “They’re just merchantmen,” she said. “What kind of training can they have? Nothing to compare to our people, who are graduates of the Imperial Navy’s navigation school.”
“If we underestimate our enemy,” Sten said, “the game will be lost before we begin. We’re not talking about ordinary navigators, you know. These beings are most likely as good as—and maybe even better than—any ship drivers in the Imperial Navy. If we go scrotes to the wall and just charge the Flame, Shaklin will jump the ship to the other end of the Possnet Sector faster than an Altarian spider strike. And we can say goodbye to any kind of a deal and hello to Queen Venatora.”
He fixed W’lson with a hard stare. “And while you are it, say goodbye to your career because the Emperor will have your guts for a winding sheet.”
But W’lson was a stubborn clot. An old line officer who couldn’t get over her resentment of having to take orders from a much younger person.
“How do you know they won’t just run, then?” she said. “We go boo and they do a million-klick jump. What’s to stop them?”
Something his father had told him flashed into Sten’s mind. It was about a strange little pest that gorged on his old man’s crops back on his homeworld. This was back before he and Sten’s mom had sold their souls to the Vulcan Factory Store.
And in that memory Sten sensed opportunity.
Sten knew the session with W’lson and the other officers was being vidded throughout the entire ship. And that many of the many crewmembers aboard the Jo’l Cash—especially out here on the fringes of the Empire—were more than likely ex farmkids, just like his dad.
He perched on a counter edge, putting himself and—he hoped—the whole ship—at ease.
“My old man grew up in the boonies,” Sten said. “Farmboy. Sharecropper’s kid. Knew what it was like to stare up the butt of a tractor drone so old and rusted out that half the time you had to push it by hand across the field.”
He saw smiles on the faces of Mk’wolf and a few of the other officers. He’d sussed his audience correctly.
“What Dad remembered most was being hungry. Belly pinch your backbone hungry. Clottin’ farmlords took ninety clottin’ percent of the crops.”
There were nods from Mk’wolf and the others. They knew what he was talking about.
“So Dad was always on the lookout for something to catch for the family pot.”
Sten paused. A reflective smile twitched his lips. “His mom had this big stew pot—probably so old it was made out of iron—hanging over an actual fire. They used methane piped in from the drakh pits for fuel.”
He shook his head in admiration of that old pioneer stock. Then he went on:
“The old man said there was this one critter—it was small and furry and a champion babymaker. They could eat a sharecropping family out of house and hut in a single planetfall. Lepus, I think he called them. Anyway, my old man figured what’s fair is fair and if these little bassids were getting fat from eating his family’s crops, why he’d find a way to eat them. Turn that stolen fat into some kind of use.
“So he’d hunt the little suckers. Every morning he’d fill his pockets with rocks and take a stroll along the field. Find himself a Lepus trail—their drakh gives them away…eat so much they’re always poopin’.”
Mk’wolf snickered. He’d been there.
“Pop said that the problem was the beasties had a sixth sense for danger. You’d barely lay eyes on them and they’d take off. And fast—why, he said they were faster than a cat runnin’ from a corn rat.
Sten sighed, shaking his head at the memory. “At first my old man thought they had him beat,” she said. “No way could he chase them down. But then he saw that they’d only hop like hell for ten, fifteen meters or so. Then they’d stop. Look back to see if you had given up the chase.”
Sten shrugged. “Guess a lot of other critters did just that. They’d see how fast a Lepus could hop and they’d give up practically before they started. Throw up their paws and go, oh drakh, and look for some nice non-hopping berries to munch on.”
Some of the officers laughed. W’lson glowered at them, but they paid her no mind.
Sten continued: “But Dad saw that the Lepus were both lazy and curious at the same time. They didn’t want to put out all that much energy. Plus, they wanted to see what the clot you were up to.
“So, they’d plump down and wait. If you ran after them again, they’d take to their heels and off they’d go. They’d let you spend all day, stopping and starting until the day was over and your mom was calling you to supper. If there was even going to be supper, that is.”
The pretty young lieutenant next to Mk’wolf frowned at this, shaking her head. Sten guessed that she’d known what it was like to go to bed hungry.
“But my old man was determined to fill that stewpot no matter what,” Sten said. “So he started studying on the Lepus. He’d run a few steps. They’d hop a couple of hops. Until, little by little he’d only be maybe ten meters away.”
Mk’wolf laughed. “Until he was in rock range,” he blurted. Then he blushed like a kid for speaking out of turn.
Sten laughed, as did the others. “Until he was in rock range,” he repeated. “He kept one clutched in his hand just waiting his chance. And when the right time came—”
He pivoted, then sidearmed an imaginary rock. Hard!
“And, bam! He had him a Lepus for the stew pot. First day he got half a dozen and his family ate like farmlords.”
The payoff was greeted with laughter and applause—as if everybody had been enjoying a viddie, instead of yawning over a headache-inducing lecture from the Big Man in Charge.
Sten let everyone have a good laugh and chatter amongst themselves for a few minutes, then came off the bench. He stood ramrod straight.
“Except, we’re going to go one better,” Sten said. “We’re gonna give them a choice.
He held up a clenched fist.
“A rock.”
Sten let the hand drop. Gave them a big grin.
“Or, they can climb into the stewpot themselves.”
As if on cue, Alex came in: “Ah’ll wager our Sten’ll hae them beggin’ fur th’ salt an’ pepper.”
Laughter, then Ida called out:
“Got a visual!”
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
CAT AND MOUSE
The bright yellow blip on Shaklin’s Holoimager held steady for a measured beat, then bloomed, unfolding like a blossom.
He glanced over at Viktor and Newton, the two most experienced members of the group. Both gave him the high sign.
Shaklin nodded agreement. “Stations, everyone,” he said.
Immedi
ately, his congregants tucked away their crystal wands and took up position around the specially designed navcenter.
From here they could keep track of every point in the Possnet Sector, as well as countless jump points ranging from several hundred thousands of kilometers, to distances many light years away.
They were also in control of both the ship’s McLean generators and AM2 drives. Everything else came under the control of Zheng and Rual at the Command Board, including the weapons systems.
Shaklin was uncomfortable with that part of the arrangement, but there was nothing he could say or do to change it without arousing suspicion.
Still, having Rual so close to the guns was frightening.
The yellow blip that was the Jo’l Cash suddenly brightened and shot forward.
Rual shouted in alarm, “They’re coming! They’re coming!”
Shaklin ignored her, but moved a hand over the drive panel. A double tap brought up the jump choices. A single tap would send the Flame and the 125-kilometer space-train in any direction he chose.
But that option would only be used as a last resort.
The yellow blip kept advancing, and Rual was jumping up and down and screaming, “Jump! Jump! What’s wrong with you? Jump!”
But Shaklin held his nerve and didn’t budge a micron.
The blip gave another surge and Rual ran at him, shouting, “Run! Run! We gotta run!”
Shaklin turned his head and fixed Rual with a glare so fierce it stopped her in her tracks. And she hung there, while Shaklin calmly turned back to his controls and goosed the McLean generator a bit. The Flame moved away from the Jo’l Cash—swiftly, but hardly at top speed.
Just as he suspected, the Jo’l Cash suddenly stopped. So that was their game, was it? Cat and mouse.
So he stopped as well, bringing a groan from Rual who was desperate to do something—anything. Zheng leaned in and whispered something to her, but it seemed to have little effect.
A few heartbeats later the Jo’l Cash shot forward again. And once again Shaklin goosed the McLean generator, retreating, then stopping when the Jo’l Cash pulled up.