Darklight Pirates

by Robert E. Vardeman

  "I wouldn't want to blow up everything. Just anyone pointing a laserifle at us."

  Cletus had working knowledge of this model rocket Leanne handed him and worked slowly but effectively to load them into the launchers on the exo's hard points. Leanne watched him closely, then finally turned to her own exo when she accepted he was competent with this bit of armament. Calibrating the lasers required both of them to coordinate, but within fifteen minutes the individual exos were ready.

  "Let's saddle up," Leanne said. She stepped backward into the opened shell of the exo, pressed her heels down and cycled the front to close. The seals meshed perfectly. A hiss signalled full pressurization.

  Cletus saw her inside the polarized helmet, twisting about to make the final adjustments so she could control the armor with the smallest of twitches. He took a deep breath, positioned himself in front of his opened suit and stepped down. As the suit closed quickly, he almost cried out in panic. One instant he stared at the stowed crates in the cargo hold and then he was cocooned and blind.

  "Set your polarized faceplate on automatic," came Leanne's soft voice in his ear. He blinked a few times and light poured in. "That's right. Do you want to practice?"

  "We only have an hour of oxygen. You can brief me on the way to the cruiser." He realized how dangerous that might be, arriving at a potential trap without knowing everything possible about the exoskeleton. The smallest muscular twitch magnified a dozen times. If he ramped up the power, he possessed the strength of fifty men.

  Fifty men with firepower potent enough to level any moderately sized city in Burran.

  He felt humbled and like a god at the same time.

  "Turn on the duplex so you can get my readouts the way I see yours."

  A tiny flashing red light alerted him to the complete linkage. Before he moved toward the airlock to join the woman, he glanced at all four layers of the heads up display to be certain everything had come online. It didn't matter to him that Leanne already would have checked his exo. When he was sure that he was online, he used the link to run down the same checklist for Leanne. Everything matched his readouts. The suits were in synch.

  He waited for her to chide him for such redundancy, but when she didn't he felt a small glow of success. He had never trained in an exoskeleton, and now he was launching himself across thousands of kilometers of airless space to board a ship where every survivor might be intent on killing him, and if everyone was dead, the flood of radioactive liquid sodium would sear through even the tough exo armor. Worse yet, the Highlander had been so severely damaged, it might blow up at any second. The readouts for the armory aboard the Shillelagh and how the weaponry there had killed off the entire marine detachment gave him something more to worry about aboard the cruiser.

  Leanne reached out and pressed her elbow to his. The slight magnetic click that shivered through his exo warned him of what came next. The airlock opened and Leanne kicked in her rocket. The exo expended its fuel quickly.

  "You're depending on me to get us back?"

  "Yes," she said. "Don't waste any propellant maneuvering."

  Cletus took a reading on the cruiser and saw she had lined them up perfectly. A Doppler radar readout gave their closing speed.

  "Matching vectors is going to take some fuel," he said, beginning to worry about how much jockeying was needed to board the ship.

  "We can conserve fuel with direct entry."

  "Not if we have to fight our way through the entire crew."

  "We retreat immediately if that occurs."

  "You're no fun." His faint joke fell on deaf ears and made him uneasy. Looking foolish to her bothered him more than having to fight his way through all the legions of hell.

  "Match now," she said.

  Cletus found his suit automatically applying the proper thrust to bring them to a hard landing on the hull. A quick check confirmed what he had wondered. Their combined bulk had thrown off the initial transit calculations. He disengaged from Leanne and powered up his lasers. Before he blasted open the airlock, she cautioned him.

  "No need. It is still operational." She stepped on the recessed pressure plate, and the airlock hatch slid back.

  Together they worked their way into the lock. It was smarter to go separately, in case the inner hatch opened to full laser fire or a bomb, but time pressed in on them. Cletus almost turned off the countdown clock on his HUD showing they had less than forty minutes left. At most they could explore for twenty, then return to the Shillelagh.

  Cletus caught his breath as the hatch swung inward. He stepped forward and took a quick sneak-peek into the chamber beyond. Empty. Leanne followed. The dim, flickering light warned that the emergency systems on the cruiser were dying. He switched on the exo IR sensors. The pale green shimmery outlines showed the hatches leading deeper into the belly of the cruiser.

  "We should hurry," he said. "Mark our path." He used a low-power laser to cut arrows into the bulkhead.

  "There is no need to waste energy. Use your inertial tracking gear." A tiny blue light popped up on his HUD. As he took a few steps, a new blue dot appeared. "The larger the dot the higher you have travelled. It gives a good three-dimensional representation where you go, using the top of your helmet as the base point."

  He moved forward using the full power of his exo legs and crashed into the hatch, rebounded and realized bulling ahead because he didn't know the equipment he used was foolhardy.

  "You take point. I'll cover the flanks and rear."

  "Use your 360 degree scan, then."

  A new layer on the HUD popped up, this one in yellow. It took him a few seconds to understand what the sensor reported. Then he motioned for her to go ahead. Cletus took a deep breath, aware how the canned air burned in his lungs. Cycling down to a tenth power allowed him to move without bouncing around, but the artificial gravity field faded under him. He added a touch of magnetics to his boot soles to keep from drifting as they entered the central corridor.

  Using his IR, he scanned the darkness ahead. The rooms off to either side showed intensities varying from cool to hot. Cletus stepped through the hatch of the first hot compartment and swung his lasers around. A few crew had lashed themselves together against the lack of gravity. They floated about the compartment, bouncing from one wall to another.

  "Recently dead," he reported. He stepped back and saw a huge infrared spot to the stern. "The liquid sodium is heating up clogged pipes. They should have vented it into space."

  "They died quickly, and the failsafes were destroyed. Your laser fire was most accurate."

  "That was bad luck on their part. All the Shillelagh has are low-power lasers." He had seen the way the warhead intended for the Shillelagh had damaged the cruiser near the bridge.

  "The bridge is airless, but I detect at least five from the crew who are still alive."

  "The emergency suits for the captain, XO and the other three vital command deck officers," he said. "We might find out what's going on if we can take any of them back for interrogation."

  Leanne paused by the sealed hatchway. On this side pressure existed. On the bridge side, they rode in vacuum. She switched to a laser comlink to prevent being overheard.

  "We blow this bulkhead. The sudden rush of air will carry us forward into their midst. Do not be afraid to use your weapons. Better to fail at taking a prisoner than to die."

  "The exoskeletons will protect us."

  "Do not count on it. The captain has had adequate time to take heavy weapons from his armory. Ready?"

  Cletus' vitals readouts soared, and he knew Leanne saw his reaction to going into battle. He forced himself to bring down his heart rate and controlled his breathing. Only when he was under better control did she twist about to aim her hip rockets at the bulkhead. The ignition roar in the slight pressure was smothered by the explosion as the carbon composite bulkhead vaporized and the atmosphere behind them sent them sailing forward.

  "Surrender! In the name of the Commander in Chief Armed Forces, g
ive up!" Cletus broadcast his demand. Two of the five suited figures hesitated using their laserifles. Another fired.

  The lash of laser fire licked around the exo. The armor dissipated the energy and diffused the beam, giving Cletus time to use his own energy weapons to vaporize the woman firing on him. He saw how Leanne had dispatched the XO, whose body had been smashed hard against the far bulkhead. Leanne's laser had burned through spacesuit and XO and left a fist-sized hole in his chest.

  "We don't want to shoot but will if you resist. Lay down your weapons. This is a direct order. I'm Commander in Chief Armed Forces Cletus Tomlins." Cletus saw the two who had hesitated before obey now.

  "You're really Commander Tomlins?"

  "And the Programmer General is aboard the ship you fired on. Did you know that?"

  "Captain Lochlan said─" The words died abruptly as a laser speared him squarely in the middle of his faceplate.

  "He's lying. I'm your captain. Obey me!" A new laser beam lashed out and caught the remaining officer in the shoulder.

  "You lied to us! You turned us into traitors, and we didn't know it!" Those were the officer's last words as Lochlan's beam finally found its target. The man's chest melted and the air within his suit rushed outward, turning into a filmy cobweb of water vapor and blood.

  Cletus turned awkwardly and launched a shoulder rocket in Lochlan's direction. In the evacuated bridge the missile did little other than blasting away part of the hull. His exo caught the return fire from the captain's laserifle. In fascination he watched his damage control displays light up, showing how the armor deflected and diffused the deadly beam. None of the indicators reached the red, but several crept into yellow alert regions.

  "Cletus, down!"

  He turned on his magnetic boots, clamped firmly and bent forward as a pair of rockets shot past his head. Leanne had fired directly at Lochlan. The captain had anticipated the return fire and ducked into the communications alcove, Faraday cage shielded from any interference generated in the ship.

  "Wait, hold back," Leanne cautioned.

  "We can blow him out with a couple more rockets. I wish they were personnel seekers. We could target him and leave the surroundings untouched."

  "There, he's trying to contact the planetary controller."

  Cletus tried to tap into the beam, also, but his inexperience with the equipment prevented it before Lochlan came rushing out, his laserifle on continuous beam. Cletus launched a rocket that barely missed the captain and drove into the communications alcove. The brilliant flare evidenced huge destruction, but an untouched Lochlan swept his deadly fire in a slashing arc, as if he wielded a sword. Part of the control panel next to Cletus melted away before the fire hit his exo.

  For an instant alarms sounded and red lights flashed as Cletus' right arm came into the beam. Then the clangor died when Lochlan's laserifle drained.

  "My right arm weapons are gone," he reported to Leanne. "He's behind the captain's chair."

  Cletus turned and fired his left-hand laser the same instant Leanne launched a salvo. Captain Lochlan foolishly showed himself, rising from behind the command chair. He fell forward, his palm slamming down on the chair's left arm before exploding from the assault launched at him.

  "He vented the liquid sodium from the fusion reactors. The ship's going to blow!"

  Cletus felt the cruiser shudder under his boots. He cut the magnetic anchor, dived for Leanne, caught her up and began firing his remaining offensive rockets at the bridge's hull. Then the shock made him feel as if he surfed, caught a wave and was lifted high on the ride of his life.

  Chapter Eight

  Goram Weir stood in the middle of the circular mirror, turning slowly in a full circle to examine himself from every angle. He smoothed a wrinkle in his immaculate white jacket and turned the black pin in his lapel just a little more to show his mourning for the lost Tomlins family, but especially the Programmer General who had served Burran so well for so many years, only to die in a tragic StringSpaceDrop mishap.

  He cleared his throat and began his rehearsed speech, watching his every gesture and adding nuances at critical points. Because every instant of his eulogy would be scrutinized, he had used the Blarney Stone to analyze his facial twitches, tone and other aspects of the speech. It had to pass muster with the newsers that he was sincerely bereaved and reluctantly assuming the position of Programmer General, though he knew his skills were so much less than his dear predecessor's.

  "That's a bit too much, isn't it?"

  Weir jerked round, his hand going for a small lasepistol that normally rode at his hip. He had donned the formal suit. A bulge would have been picked up and commented on.

  "Don't startle me like that again, Riddle. You might find yourself on the receiving end of an energy beam."

  "Does the new Programmer General value his Commander in Chief Armed Forces so lightly?"

  The intruder laughed in a manner designed to infuriate. Weir kept his temper, wondering why Riddle felt obligated to press his luck. He motioned and turned off the cylinder of mirror to face Riddle, trying to fathom what the man thought. At times, he seemed simpleminded and others, like now, he played a more intelligent game. A deeper game. If Weir took the time to find how much deeper, the officer's usefulness might be extended—unless Riddle had designs on the Programmer General's post himself. That caused Weir to chuckle. Riddle was not a learned man, not in the ways of computers. If he hooked into the neural net to access the Blarney Stone and faced the control algorithm, he would die of a coronary sparked by stark fear. It was that daunting to anyone not prepared to feel small and insignificant.

  Weir had only begun to ease himself into the complex program Tomlins had written, building its code over the years until only he fully understood it. Contrary to law, he had documented nothing of what he changed. With him dead, turned to plasma in orbit around Ballymore, asking him personally to explain the subtleties was out of the question. At least that had gone according to plan.

  "What of the bitch and her family?"

  "You mean Kori Tomlins?"

  Weir started to snap at him, then saw a glint of amusement in the man's eyes. He played his secret game. To hell with him.

  "Who else? The older sister died when her carrier was shot out of the sky during takeoff. Oh? You weren't aware I knew that? I have access to the entire data gathering network throughout Burran. The orbital satellites are useful for tracking on the surface, too."

  "Ebony Tomlins died when the carrier exploded. There was no chance of finding a body."

  "The other bodies," pressed Weir. "What have your agents told you that isn't recorded yet?"

  "I had submersibles ringing the island when the commandos entered the mansion. The safe room was found quickly. It took the better part of a half hour to blast through the armor. The room was empty."

  "It is almost certainly true that Scarlotti got them off the island. I monitored everything around the island but saw nothing."

  "If he flew a small carrier close to the ocean's surface, visual and radio wave reflection would mask his escape─their escape. I established a search pattern immediately after finding the safe room empty, but Scarlotti had gotten them away."

  Weir wanted to rail about his new Commander in Chief allowing not only the CIO but the wife of the Programmer General and his daughter to slip away, but he held back any criticism. When it became apparent Kori Tomlins had vanished, Riddle had done everything by the book. He had established the search pattern and put up interdiction rings. He failed to report an even more extensive search of Scarlotti's compound. Holding back that information wasn't an oversight. Weir thought it had failed to turn up any trace of the CIO.

  "It would have been useful having Sean deliver the memorial speech while I looked on, dabbing at a tear now and then." Weir enjoyed the way Riddle looked momentarily flustered, then recovered. One possibility was a k-chip implant that failed to function properly, but Weir had never heard of an intermittent flaw. It was more as if R
iddle had to await orders and was told the words to speak.

  A quick glance showed that the room had an installed Faraday cage to smother any electromagnetic signals coming in or outgoing. Weir walked to his desk and activated an external fiber optic link that wasn't snuffed out by the heavy copper bands hidden away in walls, floor and ceiling. The countdown to his performance moved with inexorable slowness, but it showed he would be on every Burran viewscreen in less than five minutes.

  "How are you planning to find Scarlotti and those he so foolishly aided?"

  "I've sent out my most trusted colonels. Although I never said so, I left the impression that whoever finds any of them will be promoted and become my right-hand officer." Riddle got a cockeyed look. "The betting is on Colonel Bell."

  "The head of your so-called military intelligence?" Weir didn't try to keep scorn from his voice. Jessica Bell had reached her exalted rank not through competence but blackmail. Still, being good at rooting out secrets and using them to destroy her enemies was a skill he might find useful when he eliminated Riddle.

  "Should I leave?" Riddle glanced at the projected countdown clock floating in midair. Only seconds before the comlink came active.

  "Go and prod your officers into finding them. All of them." Weir seated himself and looked straight ahead into a monitor. "It will be such a shame when those three are found dead."

  "An assignation between Kori and Sean. Young Bella was outraged that her mother cheated on her father. She murdered them, then in a fit of guilt, chose suicide." Riddle nodded as he spoke, as if he appreciated this scheme as it grew in his imagination.

  "Yes, whatever you decide. That is the outcome I seek."

  Weir's expression melted into one of sorrow, as if he fought to restrain the tears of sorrow for his lost mentor and friend.

  Riddle slipped from the room to let his new superior inform the citizens of the tragic orbital explosion.

  Riddle made a quick check of the spy detection equipment in his cubbyhole of an office. For a man sporting the new title of Commander in Chief Armed Forces, the surroundings hardly suited him. For all that, he had not liked this office when he was merely the Low Guard Commander. A few viewscreens gave all the information he required─or they had. Now a new comlink demanded his attention and to perdition with what happened in orbit or even down on the ground now that he was in charge of the Planetary Guard, also.