Angel of Destruction

by Susan R. Matthews

  Then it was just a question of waiting for the right interval to pass before transmitting a false response with the right security characteristics to pass scrutiny.

  “Okidan, yes.” The raid leader had given his name as Noman, a transparent but perfectly acceptable label under the circumstances. “And everybody has their own theory of how it was managed, too. Which they’ll tell you all about, if you don’t get away in time.”

  Noman wasn’t anyone that Kazmer recognized; not that he’d really expected to — Noman had taken prudent steps of his own to disguise his identity. A beard, a little transparent gum at the corners of his eyes to change their size and shape, all the tricks — and so well done that Kazmer had to really look closely to realize the deception.

  Noman’s voice was casual, even light; Kazmer envied his composure. Kazmer did his best to stay calm as the moments passed; finally, the dock-master’s board chirped its receipt announcement. Kazmer already knew what this one was supposed to read, but he couldn’t help being nervous about it.

  We authenticate, Tyrell. Freighter Sansifer en route to Tweniva with authorization to carry manifest as follows. You may proceed with assurance.

  Kazmer rubbed the back of his neck irritably as if scratching a sudden itch, just to cover the relief he felt.

  The dock-master closed the transmission with a casual gesture; clearly, she hadn’t been genuinely concerned — just prudent, in unsettled times. Nor was there any particular reason for her to be suspicious; there hadn’t been a raid in weeks, and unannounced traffic was apparently not unusual.

  “Right,” the dock-master said. Turning around, she started toward the door to her office that would lead back out onto the load-in docks, beckoning for Noman and Kazmer to come with her. “Let’s load cargo.”

  Time to get started, then.

  Noman nodded to Kazmer, who acknowledged the unspoken command with a crisp nod of his own before breaking into a quick jog-trot, heading out toward the freighter, where it waited with its load-in ramp unshipped and ready. They had cargo to unload and cargo to load, and then just before they left they’d off-load the courier so that the raiding party could make a separate escape.

  That way the freighter’s cargo stayed clean, with no stray weapons or unexplained extra crew to cause suspicions in anyone’s mind when they came to pass inspection by the Port Authority at Anglace. Kazmer was just as happy to be rid of the courier. The presence of the illegal communications equipment would be a dead giveaway to any inspector, and there was no sense in risk for risk’s sake.

  By the time the freighter’s crew had the cargo crates ready to move, the dock-master had called up some station resources to help; the work went quickly. There were seven large cargo crates tagged for off-load at Tyrell, and once they were on the dock the engineer took charge of getting them lined up — at right angles to the back of the freighter — as Kazmer went to let Noman know that they were ready to start the load-in.

  The freighter’s crew all wore caps and gloves, but dockworkers frequently wore protective gear when load-in and unload-in cargo; it was nothing to remark upon. Meaning in turn very little danger of being recognized: final reassurance that there was to be no killing on this raid. The raid leader would hardly have gone to all the trouble he had to ensure their anonymity if he’d been planning on simply murdering any potential witnesses, after all.

  The dock-master was reviewing the manifest with Noman. “This is an odd lot,” she said; and there was a little hint of discomfort in her voice. Was she beginning to suspect something? “Here, Pettiche, take a look. This could take a while, there doesn’t seem to be much coherence to the pull list.”

  If he looked behind him, Kazmer could see the engineer and the fence standing with the off-loaded crates, waiting for the next phase. Freighter to the left of them, the long wall of the dock-master’s office to their right, they had a good view of the entire docking bay.

  One of the people who had been helping them off-load joined Noman and the dock-master at the foot of the freighter’s load-in ramp; Kazmer thought for a moment that he recognized the man.

  “Er, well.” Noman’s voice was vibrant with slightly embarrassed apology. “The fact is, we’re already late. My fault, not my crew’s fault, so I owe them considerably. But we’ll all lose our promptness bonus if we don’t deliver in good time. Is there any way to hurry this along?”

  The third person looked the manifest over, then handed it back to the dock-master. “We don’t have to take all of that long.” No, Kazmer realized, hearing the man speak. He didn’t actually recognize the third person. He only recognized who the third person was, in a general sense. “If we called all available hands. They’ll complain about losing their sleep-shifts, some of them, but I imagine the cargo-master here — ” nodding at Noman — “could find some way to make it up to them, am I right?”

  Kazmer was Sarvaw. He knew Dolgorukij when he saw one. The accent was as good as a star chart, and the face more so, familiar in the indefinable way that people of one’s own blood were familiar. Veesliya Dolgorukij, or Kazmer missed his guess, and he didn’t think he did. Sarvaw knew from Dolgorukij. A beaten dog never forgot the face of its tormentor.

  “Oh, you can be sure of that,” Noman replied with grateful enthusiasm. “If we can get our load-out done in time to meet the schedule, you won’t be sorry. I know I’ve got something on board worth missing a sleep-shift for, I guarantee it’ll be a memorable occasion.”

  The dock-master shrugged and smiled. An older woman, she had a professional smile, one of the kind that involved lips and teeth but no real feeling. It didn’t seem to be anything personal, though; it seemed clearly to be her habit to be a little reticent. Because she sounded positive about the whole idea. “Well, all right. See it done, Pettiche. The sooner we get cargo off, the sooner we can all relax and enjoy a little well-earned treat.”

  Up into the freighter for the special crate, then. Kazmer and the navigator moved it down the ramp to the front of the load-in ramp, just to one side of Noman and the dock-master. By the time they got it into position cargo pallets were starting to arrive on the docks, and people with them.

  Raising his head to get a good view, Kazmer scanned the busy scene quickly before adjusting his visor. There were a lot of people here, fifteen, twenty perhaps. A lot of cargo. Tyrell Yards was holding luxury fabrics and botanicals, and the freighter would carry a full load to Anglace.

  With the station crew on hand to help, the load-in went as smoothly as anyone could wish. Kazmer watched the freighter’s cargo bays fill with a mixture of satisfaction and anxiety. On the one hand a load-in was just a load-in, like any other; and load-in was unexciting drudgery by its very nature.

  On the other hand, he’d never been so intimately involved in a raid before. He’d moved illegal cargo, and he’d participated in the illegal disposition of somebody else’s goods, but this was the first time he’d ever participated in an actual raid. And yet what was there to worry about? These were Langsariks. They knew what they were doing.

  When the load-in was finished Kazmer joined the freighter’s crew gathered around the special crate at the side of the freighter while Noman and the dock-master reviewed the cargo manifest, checking for completeness.

  The seven cargo crates they’d off-loaded first were big standard pre-pack units, each just less wide than a standard freighter corridor was wide, just less tall than a standard freighter’s cargo bay overhead clearance.

  The special crate was much smaller, table-top square, the sort of thing that usually held luxury goods. Specialty meats. Bulk confections and delicacies. Small containers of liquor or recreational drugs. The station crew had started to collect in the now-empty space between the freighter and the dock-master’s office, clearly waiting for the promised reward that the special crate represented; endorsing the manifest with a satisfied chop of his personal hand-seal, Noman handed the documents board back to the dock-master, assessing the assembly with a measuring eye.
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  “This must be everybody on base,” Noman said to the dock-master, but a little too loudly for just the casual remark that it seemed to be. “Can there be anyone at all who isn’t here?”

  Looking up from the completed manifest, the dock-master went from face to face, counting bodies against the backdrop of the seven cargo crates Kazmer had helped to unload earlier. One of the men Kazmer saw there was wearing the Langsarik colors, the uniform denuded of any identification markers but unmistakably Langsarik by its cut and shade. One of the people supposedly called in from sleep-shift, obviously, or he’d be wearing a station work suit instead of his personal clothing.

  “That’s everybody, all right,” the Dolgorukij at the dock-master’s side — Pettiche — answered.

  Noman nodded.

  “Very well, then. Ladies and gentlemen, I’m announcing a small change in plan.”

  It was the signal.

  The fronts of the seven cargo crates exploded with sudden shocking violence, scattering chips of structural board across the load-in bay floor.

  Startled and stunned like the rest of her crew, the dock-master took an involuntary step forward, trying to see what was going on. Raiders. The crates were full of raiders, two Langsariks to a crate, moving out quickly to form a tight-curved line with weapons trained on the station crew gathered in the load-in bay.

  The engineer broke into the special crate and handed out the weapons that were there. Some of the station crew were starting to step back, looking to the belly of the freighter to take cover; but Kazmer and the other freighter crew had that escape route in their line of fire, now.

  No escape.

  The fence nudged the dock-master in the ribs with the muzzle of an assault weapon; and slowly — with visible reluctance, her face showing her confused shock and helpless rage — the dock-master raised her open hands away from her body, with her palms flat in a gesture of surrender.

  “Let’s everyone just sit down where you are,” Noman suggested. “We don’t want anybody getting hurt.”

  If anybody made a break for cover beneath the freighter, they could lose control of the situation. There would be shooting. Kazmer waited, holding his breath.

  Nobody moved.

  Then — slowly, and with evident reluctance — Pettiche the Dolgorukij bent his knees awkwardly and sank down slowly to sit cross-legged on the floor.

  “Everybody sit down,” Noman repeated. “Dock-master. We’d appreciate your cooperation. With a little luck and some common sense, nobody needs to be the worse for this. Except maybe the owners, and they’re insured anyway, aren’t they?”

  Kazmer still didn’t dare relax.

  But the situation did seem unquestionably weighted in the Langsariks’ favor; and nobody wanted trouble, after all.

  The dock-master spoke, finally. “You heard the man.” Her disgust was clear, but so was her evident realization that they were at the mercy of the raiders. “I’m making this an official direction, one you promised to obey when you endorsed your contract documentation. Everybody sits down. Slowly. No sudden moves. Two by two. We’ll start with Gerig and Elsing, sit down on the floor and keep your hands where they can see them. Let’s go, people. Move.”

  Kazmer could breathe again.

  No bloodshed.

  Once everyone was sitting down and under guard in the middle of the room, Noman spoke.

  “Right, unship the courier and get out of here. Dock-master. New manifest. This will be easy to load. Everything’s right through there, on the other side of the security door in your office. All we need are your security codes, and we can be out of your way in no time.”

  One of the Langsarik crate-raiders came around the outside of the perimeter to relieve Kazmer and his crew. Kazmer surrendered his weapon gratefully. As soon as the courier ship was unloaded they could leave.

  Things were going as smoothly as any Langsarik raid should; but Kazmer didn’t like what Noman had just said about the dock-master’s secures.

  And still, nothing bad had happened, at least not yet.

  Why should anything bad happen at all?

  It wasn’t the most welcome experience for the staff here at the Tyrell Yards, perhaps, but it was just cargo. Not even their cargo. Someone else’s cargo. And the Langsariks had been careful to leave them no choice in the matter, no choice at all.

  With the courier on the floor and the freighter secured, Kazmer joined the navigator in the wheelhouse, and settled himself into the seat beside her. He was still tense; he couldn’t shake a feeling of residual apprehension, and it apparently showed. The navigator took one look at him and grinned with what seemed to be sympathy, giving his shoulder a friendly shake.

  “Almost ready to load-out,” she said, reassuringly. “I just saw the boss Langsarik heading for Central Dispatch. He had another Langsarik with him. One from the Tyrell crew. There was an inside man.”

  Of course. There had to be.

  Noman’s talk about secures would be just talk, after all. They’d placed a man on-site; they already had the secures.

  Kazmer was astonished at the depth of his relief.

  The engineer came forward to give Kazmer the word, his face flushed with effort and his expression full of a grim sort of satisfaction.

  “We’re off,” the engineer said. “Let’s get out of here.”

  Kazmer toggled his comm. “Docking bay clear?” he asked the dock-master, or whoever was in Central Dispatch; but he wasn’t too surprised when the voice that answered him had a distinctly Langsarik lilt to it.

  “Docking bay clear and sealed for depressurization, all personnel safe and secure. Launch dome opening sequence.”

  The Langsarik crew he had brought with him in the decoy cargo stacks would secure the crews, destroy the station’s communications to prevent a premature alarm, and ensure that nothing incriminating was left behind.

  “Freighter initiating primary launch sequence. Issue warning order.”

  There were no Fleet patrols between him and the Sillume entry vector. Once they had reached the vector they would be safe, because there was no technology that could track a ship across a vector. The authorities would assume that they’d made for the sanctuary of Gonebeyond space.

  The ship was fully pressurized; the docking-bay launch dome lay open. Kazmer fired his positioning jets, carefully maneuvering the freighter into the precise angle he wanted for the best — fastest — cleanest departure from Tyrell. They couldn’t actually fire the main thrust until they were far enough from Tyrell to avoid perturbing its orbit, or risk someone at Port Charid noticing and sending up an alarm. That would be a dead giveaway. Whether or not there were any Fleet patrols in the neighborhood, it was idiocy to borrow trouble.

  The freighter eased clear of the docking station and began to gain space between it and the Tyrell Yards.

  Kazmer watched his power profiles as the freighter slowly picked up speed.

  He’d learned that Langsarik raiding was something he simply wasn’t comfortable doing. Not even with Langsariks. Not even with the best — most decent — people he knew, and Hilton Shires was way up toward the top of that list. It had been too tense. It could have gone wrong too easily.

  He brought the fuel lines up to maximum feed carefully, gradually, slowly; and the freighter began to really move.

  He was never going to get so close to a potential disaster ever again so long as he lived, if he had anything to say about it.

  ###

  Raid leader Dalmoss Chzagul stood in the doorway of the dock-master’s office within the sealed confines of Central Dispatch, rubbing the clear-gum from his face absent-mindedly as he watched the freighter lifting away from the Tyrell Yards on monitor.

  It was three days over the Sillume vector to the nearest Fleet detachment, so the freighter was in no danger from Fleet.

  Port Charid had some police resources available, three swift cruisers with just enough firepower to stop the freighter short of the exit vector; but so long as no alarm re
ached Port Charid from Tyrell, the freighter was in no danger from Charid’s own limited police either. No alarm would reach Port Charid until Dalmoss was finished here. He had complete confidence in the effectiveness of his communications intercepts, and for good reason — they had insider information, after all.

  So the freighter was free and clear. They had plenty of time to finish up and make their escape.

  “All quiet?” Dalmoss asked Pettiche, who sat outside the dock-master’s office, monitoring the master communications board. Pettiche nodded.

  “The freighter lifted away during a black slice on the sweeps, ‘Noman.’ Just as you planned. The most we have to watch for is a routine query if anyone at Port notices.”

  “Well done, Brother Charil.” The alien name came strangely to his mouth, but they all used Langsarik names during a raid. Attention to detail was an important part of their success: even as it had been for the Langsariks themselves. “Thank you.”

  Now that the freighter was gone it was time to move to the next stage in the exercise, and Dalmoss stepped back into the relative privacy of the dock-master’s office, calling to one of the men nearby. “Efons, take over on the panels, I need Charil’s help. Brother Charil?”

  The dock-master’s office in Central Dispatch was glassed in along the side that fronted on the main room, so that the dock-master could keep an eye on her employees. Which was humorous, in a sense, because Dalmoss was using the dock-master’s vantage point to keep an eye on the dock-master herself. She was sitting on the floor against the far wall of Central Dispatch with the rest of the station’s crew, with her hands bound behind her back to encourage docility.

  Pettiche stopped a respectful half a pace behind his superior, and bent his head in token of salute. A gesture small enough to avoid drawing attention to itself — Langsariks didn’t salute — but Dalmoss knew that the respectful submission was genuine and heartfelt.

  “Yes, Noman.”

  Dalmoss nodded in the direction of the station’s crew, in turn. “This is everybody, Brother Charil? We need to be sure.” That was Pettiche’s job: to be sure. Pettiche had been placed here at Tyrell for months, just waiting for the time to come when he would be needed.