by Jason Fry
“Wow, at least come up with a good story!” said Yana.
“Belay that,” Diocletia ordered, giving her daughter a sharp look.
Tycho had heard enough.
“Cephalax II, we claim your vessel under the articles of war governing interplanetary commerce,” he said. “Shut down your engines and prepare for boarding.”
“You sound barely old enough to shave,” the captain scoffed. “You want me to surrender my freighter to a kid?”
“A thousand klicks,” Yana said.
Tycho keyed his microphone again.
“No, Ceph-Two, I want you to surrender to the pair of twenty-gigajoule laser cannons this kid has locked on your vessel,” Tycho said, trying to make his voice sound cold and ruthless. “Heave to or we will fire.”
“Seven hundred fifty klicks,” Yana said.
“Mr. Grigsby, you may fire upon my mark,” Tycho said.
“Who in the name of space is Grigsby?” the freighter captain demanded. “That your dad?”
Startled, Tycho realized he hadn’t switched his microphone to the channel used for communicating with the gunnery crews belowdecks. His last message had gone out into space instead.
“Mr. Grigsby is our warrant officer, Ceph-Two,” Tycho said, trying to recover his dignity. “He’s the man who’s going to start putting holes in your hull if you don’t shut your engines down now.”
Tycho switched his microphone to the correct setting. “Mr. Grigsby, you may fire upon my mark—but only on my mark.”
“Aye-aye, Master Hashoone. Guns are hot,” Grigsby growled.
“Five hundred,” Yana said. They could see the approaching freighter now, a collection of boxy containers connected by thick steel struts. At her stern sat a quartet of giant spheres—long-range fuel tanks like the ones the Comet had temporarily left drifting back among the space rocks.
“Carlo, lock in a starboard intercept course,” Tycho said. His heart was thudding. “We’ll destroy her sensor masts first. Maybe then she’ll take us more seriously.”
“Four hundred,” Yana said.
“Ceph-Two, this is your final warning,” Tycho said.
He glanced quickly around the quarterdeck. Carlo had his hands on the yoke, flying with his usual confident ease. Yana was adjusting her instruments, scanning the freighter for any signals that might hint at hidden weapons. Diocletia and Mavry stared straight ahead, watching the freighter close the gap between them. All were ready—for battle, boarding, or whatever might come next.
“Hold your fire, Comet,” the freighter’s captain said disgustedly. “We’re powering down.”
“Good choice, Ceph-Two. Shut down all flight systems and prepare to be boarded.” Tycho shut off his microphone. “Yana, what are they doing?”
“Velocity dropping,” Yana said. “Ion emissions at trace levels. They’re shutting down.”
“Mr. Grigsby,” Tycho said, again double-checking that he was hitting the right switch. “Keep your eyes open, but easy on the guns. Prepare the boarding party.”
“With pleasure, Master Hashoone.”
Clomping sounds came from the ladderwell, like the impact of hammers on the hull. But this sound was familiar to Tycho. He turned in time to see his grandfather, Huff Hashoone, skip the last three rungs and crash to the deck. As retired captain of the ship, Huff had no station of his own. That didn’t bother him—he liked to stand between Yana’s and Tycho’s stations, his metal feet magnetized to hold him in place during difficult maneuvers.
Nearly half of Huff’s body was metallic parts—reconnecting everything had made him the last to arrive. His right forearm was gleaming chrome, ending in a wicked-looking blaster cannon screwed into his artificial wrist, while his lower legs were dull black metal. His gray hair hung long over a face that was half scarred flesh and half a chrome skull in which an artificial eye blazed white. The skin he had left was covered with tattoos—mermaids and skulls, as well as names and symbols whose meaning none of the Hashoones knew. Huff no longer ate—a power cable plugged into a metal socket in his throat. Above the socket, a green light indicated his cybernetic systems were fully charged.
“A prize! I can almost smell it!” Huff roared. He patted three carbines tucked into a cracked black harness that stretched across his chest, letting his organic hand linger lovingly on the wicked-looking pistols, then gripped the pommel of his sword.
Diocletia looked at her father and cocked an eyebrow.
“Are we invading Earth, Dad?” she asked.
“A pirate is always prepared!” Huff said. He tromped forward to stare at the main screen, now filled by the port side of the freighter.
“We’re not pirates—we’re privateers,” Diocletia said.
“Word games, Dio,” Huff said with a dismissive wave of his blaster cannon.
“Please do not use hand signals that involve swinging a fully charged weapon on the quarterdeck,” Vesuvia objected.
“Avast,” said Huff. “Belay that, you cursed chatty machine.”
“You’re staying here,” Diocletia told her father. “Tycho has the helm and will lead the boarding party.”
“Tyke?” Huff whirled and stared at his grandson in surprise. His artificial eye whirred as it changed focus. “But he’s only a lad!”
“We’re twelve. How old were you when you led your first boarding party, Grandfather?” Yana asked.
“Arr, I was ten,” Huff muttered, pulling at his beard. “But the solar system was different then, girlie.”
“Quiet, both of you,” Diocletia said, turning to look at Tycho. “Tycho, everything will go fine if you show the crew you’re confident,” she said. “And if everything doesn’t go fine . . . stay behind them and let them do their jobs.”
“I will,” Tycho said, wishing his voice wasn’t quavering.
“Good,” Diocletia said. She frowned and turned back to the main screen. “You’d better get going, then. Vesuvia, my starship.”
3
BOARDING PARTY
As he hurried to the lower decks of the Comet, Tycho’s boots clattered on the rungs of the forward ladderwell. It was a different world down here: the air was thick with smoke and the smell of fuel, and red light dimly illuminated a maze of beams and girders. A few minutes earlier, most of the crewers had been asleep in hammocks strung from those beams. Now they were rushing to their stations, arms cradling weapons and gear.
A female crewer with a shaved, tattooed head and earrings up and down both ears caught sight of him and nearly dropped her wicked-looking laser rifle in her haste to salute.
“Master Hashoone on deck!” she yelled.
The crewers snapped to attention and saluted, their eyes fierce.
“As you were,” Tycho said. “Boarding party, assemble at the port airlock.”
A cluster of crewers yelled eagerly and rushed in that direction. Hurrying to keep pace with them, Tycho momentarily felt very small—they were big, tough men and women, with scars and artificial parts accumulated over years of fighting. Then he reminded himself that most of them had served his family for their entire lives, and some came from families that had done so for generations. He might be only twelve, but he was a Hashoone—and that meant the family retainers would follow his orders and give their lives for him.
The knot of crewers parted, and Mr. Grigsby stepped forward. The Comet’s warrant officer was big enough that his head almost touched the security cameras hanging from the ceiling. Grigsby had dark brown skin, white dreadlocks, and tattoos that glowed green, orange, and blue. Strings of gold coins hung from his holsters and jangled as he walked.
“Boarding party of eight, Master Hashoone,” he said, then handed over two gleaming chrome laser musketoons. “And here are the ranking officer’s weapons.”
“Thank you, Mr. Grigsby,” Tycho said, taking the heavy guns. They had broad, bell-like muzzles and felt deadly in his hands. He said a silent prayer that he wouldn’t have to use them.
Grigsby and the crewers wer
e looking intently at him, he realized. Stop daydreaming!
“She’s an Orion freighter, fully loaded,” Tycho said, his voice breaking on the final word.
Tycho caught a couple of the crewers trying not to smile and raised his voice, staring fiercely at each of the men and women in the circle around him.
“Her captain didn’t much like being ordered to shut down,” Tycho said. “But that’s his tough luck, isn’t it? If he doesn’t give us trouble, we won’t bring him any. But if he starts something, we’ll finish it. That clear?”
“Clear,” Grigsby said, showing a grin full of chrome teeth.
“Three cheers for Master Tycho!” a crewer yelled, and a moment later all the crewers were cheering, guns and swords raised.
“Dobbs! Richards!” Grigsby bellowed. “Take point!”
Two of the Comet’s biggest, meanest crewers stepped forward. Both wore plates of armor across their chests. Dobbs, the Comet’s skinny, ghostly pale master-at-arms, had an evil-smelling cheroot clutched in his teeth. Richards, a belowdecks veteran, stopped at the airlock door, eyes narrowed.
Tycho activated his headset. “Quarterdeck, we’re ready.”
“You are green for boarding,” his mother said coolly in his ears as the bells began to clang, signaling 0300 hours. Tycho waited for the sound of the sixth and final bell to die away, then nodded to Grigsby.
“Open her up,” he said.
Alarms sounded and lights flashed as the Comet’s inner airlock doors began to grind open, followed by the outer airlock doors a few meters away. Beyond them, the hatch of the Cephalax II waited. The chill of deep space filled the vestibule, and the vapor of the crewers’ breath wreathed their bodies like smoke.
Richards stabbed a finger at the control, using his other hand to hold his carbine at shoulder height, and pointed at the hatch. Tycho held his breath. This was the most dangerous moment of any boarding, when no one knew what waited on the other side of the hatch. If the freighter’s crew had decided to resist, the air would soon be filled with laser blasts, smoke, and screams.
“Easy!” Tycho warned, even as he switched off the safeties on his pistols.
The Cephalax II’s hatch opened with a groan of metal, and wind fluttered through the airlock as the atmospheres of the two ships began to mix. No shots came their way. The freighter’s inner airlock doors were already open, and two unhappy-looking men in dirty uniforms waited on the other side, hands held carefully above their heads.
Dobbs and Richards patted the men down for weapons as the Comet’s other crewers rushed forward, guns at the ready. They glanced quickly down passageways, on guard against an ambush, but for now there was no resistance.
“Comet, we’re aboard,” Tycho said into his headset, then nodded to the Cephalax II’s crewers. “Take me to the bridge.”
The Cephalax II was a pretty typical freighter—neither her passageways nor her crew were particularly clean or neat, but she struck Tycho as being in good working order. The thrum of her power plant was low and steady, and the air smelled stale but clean, indicating her recycling systems were functioning. While the Comet’s crewers fanned out through the freighter in pairs, Tycho and Grigsby followed the Ceph-Two’s crewers to her bridge. There they found four men sitting at their stations, hands held still and in plain sight, while another man stood beside the captain’s chair, staring out the viewport.
“Captain Wofford of the Cephalax II, registered on Earth to the GlobalRex Corporation,” the man beside the chair said without turning.
Tycho strode across the bridge to the captain’s chair. Grateful to know that the imposing Grigsby was right behind him, he took a deep breath and prayed he wouldn’t stumble over the lengthy speech the law now required him to deliver.
“Tycho Hashoone, acting as captain of the Shadow Comet. According to the laws of war and abiding by Article 23c of the interplanetary accords on space-borne commerce, I claim this craft on behalf of the Jovian Union. She and her contents will be apportioned according to the laws of space as adjudicated by the Ceres Admiralty Court. By the dictates of our letter of marque, I swear no harm will come to craft or crew.”
With this speech complete, he placed his hand upon the captain’s chair. Wofford knew what those words and that gesture meant, and Tycho waited for him to accept them and acknowledge that the freighter was now Jovian property.
But instead, Wofford shook his head.
“Afraid you can’t do that, kid,” he said.
Tycho realized Wofford was looking behind him. He turned and saw one of the freighter’s other crewers stand up at his station. He was bearded and thick chested, with hard eyes and a nasty smirk.
“Well, go ahead, Mr. Soughton,” Wofford said with a frown. “Present your credentials.”
“Right.” Soughton lifted a hand to the breast pocket of his uniform shirt. Grigsby raised his carbine, and a dot of red light glowed ominously on Soughton’s temple.
“Go slow, matey,” Grigsby growled. “Less yer tired of havin’ a head.”
“Don’t get excited,” Soughton said. He dug in his pocket and extracted a rumpled document.
“Allow me to present my, uh, credentials as a registered diplomat, acting on behalf of the elected government of Earth,” Soughton said, then paused and frowned. “Based on the . . . I mean, according to the laws of war, this craft, her crew, and her contents are protected against seizure by diplomatic immunity.”
The corner of Soughton’s mouth jerked upward. Grigsby snatched the papers from the man’s hand, keeping the red dot fixed on his temple, and handed them to Tycho, who studied them briefly. Soughton crossed his burly arms, smiling.
“You don’t look much like a diplomat,” Tycho said doubtfully, looking at the muscles bulging under Soughton’s greasy uniform.
“And you don’t look much like a pirate, kid,” Soughton replied with a sneer.
“Privateer,” Tycho muttered. He looked helplessly around the bridge, then activated his headset.
“Comet, it’s Tycho.”
“Have you secured the bridge?” his mother asked.
“Yes. Well, sort of. I’m not sure.”
“What does that mean?” Diocletia demanded. “Have you secured the bridge or not?”
“We’ve got a problem,” Tycho said.
4
THE MYSTERIOUS DIPLOMAT
Leaving Grigsby to guard the Ceph-Two’s bridge, Tycho returned to the Comet, Soughton’s papers in hand. He spread them out on his mother’s console for his parents and siblings to study, while Huff stalked around the quarterdeck, spinning his carbines and arguing with Vesuvia about safety.
“They’re fakes,” Carlo said. “Anyone could make papers like these.”
“No, they’re real. Look at this holo-seal,” Mavry said unhappily. “If the authorities on Earth started allowing freighter captains to forge diplomatic credentials, no diplomat of theirs would be safe.”
“But Dad, it doesn’t make sense,” Tycho objected. “What’s a diplomat doing on a cruddy freighter instead of a fancy courier ship? Plus he stumbled over the immunity declaration. It was like he’d never said it before.”
“So maybe he’s new,” Yana said with a shrug. “New and inexperienced.”
“But he wasn’t scared of Grigsby—and everyone’s scared of Grigsby,” Tycho said. “And his uniform was a mess. You’ve seen Earth diplomats on Ceres, Yana. They walk around in fancy clothes, like they own the solar system.”
“Earthfolk, bah,” interjected Huff. “Noses pointin’ to the sky, every one of ’em. They think they’re better ’n us. Don’t you believe it, lad.”
Huff looked down at his hand and grimaced, then opened and closed his fingers.
“Is your hand hurting, Grandfather?” Yana asked.
“Arr, it’s nothin’,” Huff said, embarrassed. “Cold on the quarterdeck, is all.”
“We could contact the Securitat,” Carlo suggested, referring to the Jovian Union’s intelligence service.
Diocletia shook her head.
“They’ll err on the side of caution and say to let her go,” she said. “After all, it’s not their prize.”
Diocletia tapped the holographic seal on Soughton’s documents.
“I agree that these papers are real,” she said. “But like Tycho, I want to know what a diplomat is doing on a beat-up cargo hauler like the Ceph-Two.”
“Not to mention why he looks more like a Port Town roughneck,” Tycho said.
“Does it matter what he looks like?” Mavry asked. “If he’s a diplomat, he’s a diplomat. We’re already risking a fine for interference with interplanetary commerce.”
“I know—but this doesn’t feel right,” Diocletia said, frowning at her husband. “I can’t put my finger on exactly what, but something’s wrong here.”
“I can solve yer problem,” Huff said, bringing his built-in cannon down on the console with a clang. “Have yer diplomat take a short walk out the airlock. We’ll see what he has to say when he’s breathin’ vacuum!”
“That’s barbaric,” objected Carlo, but Huff just grinned a horrible half-living grin, his cybernetic eye a spark of white.
“We will do no such thing,” Diocletia said, glaring at her father. “Our letter of marque requires us to abide by the laws of war, as you know perfectly well.”
“To say nothing of our responsibility as civilized people,” Carlo added.
Huff uttered a foul oath under his breath.
“Dead men don’t bite, Dio,” he said. “Piracy was glory, before politicians turned it into pushin’ papers. Never thought I’d see my own children make a mockery of the family tradition.”
“That’s enough, Dad,” Diocletia said wearily, reaching for her headset.
“Mr. Grigsby, ready the Ceph-Two for passage to Ceres,” she said. “Carlo will join you as pilot, while First Mate Malone prepares the list of what’s in her cargo hold. I want engines lit in twenty-five minutes.”
“Aye-aye, ma’am,” Grigsby said over the feed. They could hear loud protests behind him, on the bridge of the captured freighter.