“Yes, sir, but we got them. They are all here in this group. They’ll be no trouble now, sir.”
“Very well. Come with me, and bring two of your people. The others had best stay here and secure the prisoners. If any are dead, leave them secured. See what you can do for the injured, and place them with our earlier captives. I will check on the Captain’s quarters while you search the control deck.”
Satisfied that the prisoners were secure, and ashamed to find himself sorry that none were dead, Harry checked the AI for traces of the missing Captain and his companions.
“You have inflicted damage to my manual interfaces. How will I know what they want of me?”
“We will repair them. It was necessary to prevent the man who stole you from your original Captain from taking control again. Now I need you to help me find him.”
“He is in the Captain’s quarters attempting to use the interface to access me. Should I allow it?”
“No! Where are his companions?”
“They are in Engineering Control.”
Harry set off at a run, going up a deck to where the Captain’s spacious quarters occupied half the forward end of the ship.
Approaching the head of the companionway stairs with caution, he found the corridor empty and the doors closed to the Captain’s quarters and the Chief Engineer’s, which occupied the other half of this part of the deck. He approached the Captain’s door and checked the access log.
A grim smile spread on his face when he saw that the door was open, and the occupant of these quarters was attempting to bypass Harry’s blocking codes on the console. Harry was smugly satisfied when he heard Captain Heemstra swearing at the network when it refused to respond to his efforts.
Harry heard someone groan in pain, and Heemstra snarled, “I am finished with you, Lieutenant. Your people have destroyed my ship and caused me more trouble than any of you are worth.”
A blast of sound made Harry wince, and he stepped back to one side of the door, ready to activate it and rush in when he realised Captain Heemstra was about to open it from the other side.
Harry braced himself, his dirk at the ready, and as Heemstra cleared the opening, he leapt forward and drove the dirk deep through the suit and into the man’s side.
“Take that, you damned murderer,” he snarled as he wrenched the blade clear and slashed again at the figure’s swinging arm, the projector clutched in the gloved hand sending a burst of plasma that burned the bulkhead.
Harry’s blade found the charger unit on the projector. A burst of incandescent heat engulfed a section of the blade and the gloved hand holding the projector. He swung again, this time directing the blow at the control unit on the front of the suit. There was a satisfying burst of sparks as the controls were torn apart and the figure staggered backward, desperate to escape this hard-eyed youth with murder in his heart and a blade in his hand to deliver it. Harry drove him back, his blade poised, the killing lust running high in his veins. This murderous bastard would not escape him now. Nothing mattered as he focussed all his attention on the terror in the man’s eyes as he retreated.
Captain Hendrik Heemstra stumbled backward in the rapidly failing EVA suit and saw death grinning at him behind the grim youth with the antique weapon in his hand. Turning, he scurried behind the desk and console that occupied one end of what had been his quarters. Desperately tearing loose the latches on the suit with his uninjured hand, he ripped it open, suddenly aware that he was bleeding profusely, and his hand was burned down to the bone.
“Don’t kill me!” he screamed. “I surrender. I surrender. Please don’t kill me! I’m hurt. I’m bleeding. Help me….” His voice trailed off with a whimper.
“Help you?” Harry felt the bloodlust draining out of him. Suddenly he felt sick. Here was a man pleading for his life, but this man had taken many more lives without a thought. A memory of the torn and burned corpses on New Eden, and the disfigured and distorted corpses retrieved from the destroyed compartments on Leander swam before Harry’s eyes. His gaze took in the body of his Lieutenant, one leg and most of her head burned away. “You ask me for mercy? What mercy did you show my Lieutenant? What mercy did you show the original crew of this ship? Yes, Captain Heemstra, I do know about the original crew and how you came to be her Captain.” He stared with contempt at the whimpering man. “If I were like you, I should do to you what you have done to so many. I would place you in the airlock and send you out into space. But I am not as you are, and I will not sully my name or the Fleet’s with such action.”
He lowered the blade as Ferghal and Sheoba rushed into the cabin. To Ferghal he said, “Call TechRate Sørensen to render first aid. Then lock this murderous pirate in isolation. We will hand him over to the authorities as soon as we reach Fleet headquarters in Earth orbit.”
Rallying slightly, Captain Heemstra laughed weakly. “You’ll be lucky! How do you plan to control the ship without the control centres? Fleet may think they’re God almighty, but even he couldn’t control this ship without the network.” He glared at Harry and said with an air of triumph, “You have been too clever by half, my young friend. With the controls gone, we’re all as good as dead now.”
“Really?” Harry turned his eyes on the scowling Captain. “Would you care to look at the console display in front of you?” He waited until the man, somewhat reluctantly, looked at the screen. “Now let me see,” Harry mused with nonchalance. “Here is the ship’s log, and here is the manifest, notable by the absence of certain items you have in the real manifest, coming up now. Oh yes, and here is the modified Watch and Station Bill you so thoughtfully provided, and the course and destination you fed in from your little rat hole.”
His contempt for the visibly shaken man boiled to the surface. “Do you really think for one moment, Captain Heemstra, that I would have ordered the destruction of those control consoles if I did not have another means at my disposal to control the ship?”
To Jürgen Sørensen, he said, “Take him away, please, Mr Sørensen. Keep him alive and ensure that he is kept isolated from everyone else. Get Mr Werner to assist you in making sure he has no weapons hidden, no means to access any network and no means with which to deprive the courts of their opportunity to hear his crimes. Then send Mr Mann and Warrant Carolan to me here. The Lieutenant will need to be accorded a decent burial in due course.”
“Jawohl, Herr Heron,” replied Sørensen, his voice rumbling from deep within his tall, solid frame. Then, as if he were merely picking up a ragdoll, he dragged Captain Heemstra to his feet and almost tore the man out of his EVA suit before propelling him to the door.
To Ferghal and Sheoba, Harry said, “Have you captured the remaining men?”
“One has escaped and is hiding somewhere,” said Ferghal. “Warrant Carolan is searching the ship for him.”
Harry nodded. “Then we must find him quickly. I want the drives returned to the control of the ship’s network as soon as possible. Navigation too, but we must secure the ship first.”
Chapter 39 – Taking Command
The search was painfully slow business. It seemed incredible that there could be so many spaces where a person could conceal him or herself. On Harry’s orders they searched each deck, sealing each door as they did so. As they completed the main deck, TechRate Mann found an abandoned EVA suit, and for Harry the whole picture changed when he realised the suit was designed for a woman’s use. His notions of propriety and chivalry clouded his thinking. “A woman, you say? But this is unconscionable! We must find her quickly. If she is injured, she may need help. She may be in fear of us, and I would not wish her injured further.”
It was almost his undoing when he opened the next door without caution, his mind filled with the need to find a possibly injured woman.
Sheoba’s lightning responses saved him. The bolt of plasma singed his cheek as she threw him aside. A scream of rage and fear followed the sound of a brief struggle. The Lacertian emerged, her prisoner
screaming obscenities, helpless in the iron grip of her captor.
Harry picked himself up off the deck and retrieved his fallen dirk, momentarily unable to believe his ears. Surely no lady used language such as this! He had certainly heard this and worse on a woman’s lips, but they had been trollops and fish sellers. No woman of any breeding would behave so.
His temper flared as the narrowness of his escape boiled up inside him.
“Silence!” he roared, his voice filling the compartment and echoing along the corridors.
Everyone froze. For several seconds no one moved. Then the woman sneered and said, “Well, well, look who we have here.” She eyed him from head to toe and back again. “If it isn’t the escaped lab rat. I enjoyed experimenting on your body, Heron.” Her smirk was positively vile.
Harry’s Irish temper had reached its limit. “Lab rat, am I?” his voice now ominously quiet.
Ferghal, who alone had witnessed Harry’s fury and knew that the quietness of his voice meant he was only just barely in control, moved to where he could intervene if necessary.
Harry’s eyes blazed, and the woman found herself looking into pools of white-hot fury. “Oh yes, I recognise you, Katerina de Vries, dragon queen of the Johnstone torturers,” Harry said, remembering how she had taunted, teased and flirted with him to entrap him in the lab on Pangaea two years earlier. “You are no woman. You are nothing but a beast from the deepest pits of hell. You are unfit to breathe the same air as decent folk. You are unfit to share the name of humankind. You consort with the devil, and you shall suffer with the devil. You are filth in my eyes and an insult to womanhood.”
Katerina opened her mouth to protest then stopped when the tip of the antique blade touched her nose.
Harry shook Ferghal’s restraining hand from his arm as his friend intervened. His voice almost a whisper, he said, “My blade is carried with honour. I will not soil it with your blood. I will not sully my name nor even the name of any of my crew by destroying you as you destroyed those who had the misfortune to be your lab rats.” He could smell her fear now and saw it in her eyes. “Yes, I am the lab rat who escaped, so I guess that makes me the better man, doesn’t it? I managed to get out of your lair and trap you and several others in it. But you would do well to remember that rats also bite, and their bite may be fatal. Take care you do not get bitten. After you and your people had done with me, I felt I had been demeaned as a human being. I felt violated, dirty and ashamed. Though it cost me my soul, I will destroy every last one of you.”
He let the sword point indent her skin just enough to show her that he meant what he said.
Finally, he stepped back, and Katerina let out a visibly shaky breath.
“Get her out of my sight,” he ordered. “Keep her from the others, and let Sheoba be with whoever attends her. If she makes any attempt upon any one of you, I shall kill her myself.”
He stalked out of the compartment shaking with the effort to control his fury. He paused out of sight to lean against the bulkhead and say a silent prayer for help and forgiveness for his murderous desires.
Ferghal and Sheoba found him a short while later, seated in the command chair amidst the destroyed controls, his damaged dirk resting in his hands. He was still shaking, his face white with rage. He looked up, his eyes bright. “Sheoba, thank you for saving me from my stupidity. I will not make that mistake again.”
Sheoba bowed, making her gesture of respect, slightly awed by this new Harry she was seeing.
“Damnation,” he muttered. “These scum make me feel unclean! Damn the lot of them to the eternal pit of fire!” He calmed himself, forcing his mind to address the problems of running this ship. “Sheoba, show Ferghal where the access is for the hidden control centre. I will transfer the Navigation system. We have a ship to deliver to the Fleet. Let us make a start.” He looked at the blade of his dirk, the metal discoloured with blood and the edge partly destroyed were it had made contact with the plasma projector’s charger unit. “I fear my dirk now bears the record of our fight. I shall have to acquire something of less personal importance should we have to fight again lest I destroy it utterly.”
“Fear not, Harry.” Ferghal felt relieved to see his friend returning to his normal controlled self. “I know I can repair it for you, but I recommend a cutlass for the future. It is truly a working man’s weapon, but effective nonetheless.” To himself he thought Neither a dirk nor a cutlass is the weapon a Captain carries. As our Captain now, you shall have a sword. I shall see to it as soon as we have this ship secured.
THEIR DETERMINATION TO PREVENT HEEMSTRA AND HIS crew retaking the ship had perhaps been over enthusiastic. And now there was a further problem.
“The shuttle controls they used to operate the drives are failing,” Ferghal told Harry. “We must reconnect it to the AI as soon as possible. The only way to regain control is to dismantle the connections and return them to their proper links. I have tried to link the shuttle unit back to the ship, but it cannot be done.”
“But that will shut down the drives, will it not?” asked Harry.
“So will the failure of the current arrangement. And that is already showing signs of it.” Ferghal paused. “Uncoupling the drives while in operation will shut them down unless I can hold them in operation by acting as a bridge until the connections can be restored. It will be difficult, but it should work.”
Harry shook his head as he considered the severity of the situation. “They must have known this when they set it up.”
“True. But I don’t think they intended to continue with it. They perhaps planned to drop out of hyperspace again as soon as they were clear and then restore the link, but we do not have that luxury. The unit they used is failing rapidly.”
Harry considered their options. The lieutenant was dead, her murderer under lock and key and tranquillised because of his injuries. Harry had his own people to save, and several prisoners. If he left this situation, they could all die. If he ordered Ferghal to go ahead and it failed, they would certainly die.
“Very well, my friend, see what you can do to prepare, and then we will have to attempt it as soon as possible,” agreed Harry. “Advise me when you are ready.”
FERGHAL WORKED OUT THE STEPS AND THE SEQUENCE. Then he assigned each of his team members a task, and rehearsed exactly how it must be done.
Left to himself, Harry checked the star charts and databases and found there was nowhere they could safely drop out while the reconnection was made. It seemed they had no option but to attempt this while in transit. It represented a huge risk, but he could see no alternative.
His thoughts were interrupted when Ferghal connected with him through the AI.
“Harry, if I take control of the drives, can you link to me and help me stay in contact with the network while Sheoba and TechRate Mann switch over the circuitry? I must keep the control circuits active while this is done or the drives will shut down.”
“Of course. I have transferred the navigation already, so I am free to assist.” Harry hesitated, suddenly conscious of another presence in the AI. “Ferghal, there is something or someone else in the system. Do you sense them?”
“I do, but we have little time to waste. Help me do this quickly lest they seek to prevent it.”
Taking a position where he could signal his intentions, Ferghal nodded. To Sheoba and the waiting TechRate, he said, “Watch for my signal. I may not be able to speak once I take control of the drives. Get those circuits moved as fast as you can.”
Linking to Harry, he whispered a prayer as he sought out the drive controls and immersed himself in the complex stream of commands that kept the drives operating and stable. He sensed Harry supporting and helping to hold circuits and systems in operation, then suddenly felt a third presence. He was about to withdraw and alert Harry when he felt a sense of calmness descend and somehow, he knew that whoever it was wished to help. He checked the circuits again, and when he was sure he had everything, h
e made a slight gesture, which Sheoba spotted and correctly interpreted as the signal.
“Now, Mr Mann, quickly,” she hissed.
The transfer took mere minutes, but for Ferghal it was the longest few minutes of his life. He struggled to hold his concentration on the multiple links simultaneously. At one point, he sensed the third presence intervening through his own failing grasp on the circuits.
Then it was finished. The transfer was complete.
He staggered as he removed himself from the system and sat down with his head in his hands, a splitting headache pounding his temples.
Drawing a sobbing breath, he gasped, “One minute more and my head must have exploded. It is done, my friend. The system will now function on automatic until we tell it not to. It was not a minute too soon, either — the multitask processor in their unit was overloaded and would have failed within the next hour. It had not the capacity for a plant of this size and complexity.”
Harry nodded. “They could not have had much time to arrange it.”
His headache worsening, Ferghal agreed. “Lieutenant Orloff’s precautions must have frustrated their intention of making a brief transit while they dealt with us.” He hesitated then said quietly, “Something was assisting me, not unlike the time the Siddhiche guided me on the Vanguard. I wonder why they help us?”
“I felt it too. Perhaps they want to assist us in this. But why are they here? I wonder what they seek? And why with us?” Harry paused. “Perhaps we shall have time to learn this, for I do not think we shall be told.” Indicating the wrecked controls, he grimaced. “Now that we have the ship, we must bring her under control.” His mind had already moved on to their next problem. “I have a problem with the navigation. If I attempt to put us on a course for Pangaea, we must needs pass directly through an area where we will almost certainly encounter the Consortium ships in force. To turn back and seek the company of the DGK and the others runs a similar, although lesser, risk. That leaves us but one option: we must press on and take the ship directly to Earth.”
Harry Heron: No Quarter Page 35