Shaking his head, Naxos said, “They make you fight in the dirt?”
“When needed,” Cooper said. “Though our primary training was space-based. Originally we were garrison troopers for star ships, used for internal security and boarding actions, but over time our remit has somewhat expanded.”
Glancing at Cantrell, another said, “I see someone's proving old Yorax right, then.”
“About damn time,” the first one said. “I'm Trant, Deputy Director. While I don't think we could ever aspire to your level of training, we'd be glad to listen to anything you have to say. How long are you with us?”
“A few hours,” Cooper replied. “Then we've got to go back to the ship.”
Nodding, Trant turned to Cantrell, and asked, “What is it you do over there?”
“Tactical Officer.”
His eyes widened, and he said, “I think you might be even more help than the good Ensign.” Lowering his voice to a conspiratorial whisper, he said, “Just don't tell anyone on the Council. I don't think they'd take it very well.”
Frowning, Cooper asked, “If you don't mind my saying so, you seem a lot more liberal out here than the rest of the population.”
“Surprised?” Trant asked. “You shouldn't be. For a start, most of us have Earth-born relatives somewhere back in our ancestry. And we're the ones who are always at the sharp end, fighting those damn pirates.” He pulled out a file of paper, waving it in the air, and said, “The report that cost Yorax his job, first time around. Personnel Utilization Requirements. Sounds boring, doesn't it.”
“Extremely.”
Dropping it to the desk, he said, “It boils down to female suffrage and full employment. We've got too few people doing too many jobs, and a third of our population is restricted to worthless pursuits.”
“Come on, Trant,” Naxos said. “It isn't as bad as all that. I'm as open-minded as the rest of you, but I'm sure the Council knows what they are doing. Our friends come from a different society, and perhaps one that is more fortunate than ours.”
Slamming his hand on the desk, Trant replied, “Damn it, we're stagnating, when we should be expanding. Once we dreamed of pushing out to the other worlds...”
“And when we've wiped out the pirates, we'll be able to do just that.” Turning back to Cooper, he said, “They're becoming a hell of a menace.”
“Not just out there,” another guard said. “The dissidents over here are growing in strength as well.”
“I still say they're working together,” Trant said. “They've got agents right here on Skybase, and they're using them to spread all kinds of hell. We're putting out fires around the clock, and I wish I could say that I was only speaking metaphorically.” Shaking his head, he said, “Not that cutting the basic ration has helped the situation.”
Frowning, Naxos replied, “Sir, these people are scum. All must work together for the common good, or all of us will die. Words that are just as true today as they were when the Council was founded. You said it yourself. The pirates have managed to infiltrate, maybe on some of the outer settlements, and got their people in our organization.” Looking around darkly, he said, “I suspect they have help at higher levels as well.”
With a wry smile, Trant said, “Are you going to report me? In front of our guests?” He sighed, and said, “One of the most important aspects of our job is that we have to think the unthinkable. If we can't get into the minds of the people we hunt down, we haven't got a hope in hell of stopping them.”
Naxos frowned, nodded, and said, “I still think talk like this is unnecessary.”
“Sir,” a guard said, looking up at a status panel. “Trouble on Level Nine.”
“Let's see it,” Naxos said.
Shaking his head, the guard replied, “We don't have any surveillance in that section.” Glancing at Cooper, he added, “It was stripped four years ago to cover the loading docks, and never replaced.”
“We have to prioritize,” Naxos said.
“Nevertheless, someone has interrupted the power relays in Section Thirty-Nine, and there's nothing on the maintenance schedule for today that can explain it.”
“Sabotage, in progress,” Trant said. “This time we might get some answers. Want to come along?”
Cantrell shook her head, and replied, “We can't get involved in matters of domestic security.”
“Still,” Cooper replied, “We are here to observe, and the best way to do that is to go where the action is.” Looking at Cantrell, he asked, “Or are you ordering me to stay here?”
“She's your boss?” Naxos asked.
“Technically, no, but she does outrank me,” he replied. “What's it to be, ma'am?”
Turning to Trant, she said, “Give us two jackets. If we're going to do this damn stupid thing, we'd better not be seen doing it.”
Frowning, Naxos said, “I'm not sure about this, sir. Maybe we should clear it with the Council.”
“Go ahead,” Trant replied, tossing a pair of blue jackets at Cooper. “By the time you get any sort of a response, the saboteurs will have died of old age. Let's move.”
While Naxos watched, a scowl spreading across his face, half a dozen of the guardsmen pulled rifles from the wall lockers, racing out of the door and down the corridor, Trant at their head. Cooper pulled out his pistol and followed them, and after a last glance at Naxos, so did Cantrell.
The aerostat was a maze of corridors and passages, obviously long changed from their original function, and he knew that if he lost contact with the racing guards, he'd never find his way back again. Not without a lot of questions that he didn't want to answer, anyway. The corridors were empty now, sirens sounding that cleared their way through.
That was strange in itself. On Alamo, he'd expect discipline like that, but during his training on civilian stations, there had always been a contingent of gawkers convinced that the rules didn't apply to them, that they were being given a free show. At the very least someone should be loitering, undertaking an errand that they alone thought was important. Nevertheless, they raced on around empty corridors, until after what seemed like a week's hard march, Trant stopped at a bulkhead door, gathering the rest of his men around.
“We've got the area sealed off, but there is an exterior accessway. Watch out for that. No idea how many people we're dealing with, no idea what they might be armed with, and it wouldn't surprise me in the slightest if they've planted some sort of explosive trap.” With a frown, he added, “We don't have time for anything fancy. It's a small area. Go in, move fast, and yell if you see something strange.” He reached across, then pulled a lever, releasing the door.
Inside was a cold, dank area with water dripping from the ceiling, obviously far less well maintained than the area they had previously visited. As they edged in, Cooper saw signs that people were living in here, old, well-worn sleeping bags dumped on the floor by an alcove, graffiti scrawled on the wall.
A faint squeaking noise caught his ear, and he turned, raising his gun, only preventing himself from firing at the last minute as he realized he had a rat in his sights.
“Got a lot of them in this section,” one of the guards said. “Can't keep them down, and the traps only go so far. I reckon the rats run more than a few of the decks.”
“Quiet,” Trant said, pushing forward. At least the layout was straightforward enough, one long corridor with rooms on either side, no doors to hinder their search. The inhabitants of this area hadn't been able to leave, and he saw a dozen people huddled together in a single cabin around a flickering electric fire, blankets heaped around them. One of them looked up at him, desperation in his eyes, before looking down at the deck again, as though he was scared to be noticed.
“Just crawlers,” a man at the rear said. “Plenty of them around. Bastards ought to sign in.”
“What's the point?” Trant replied. “They wouldn't get
anything more than they do now.”
A shape moved across the corridor at the far end, pausing for a second to look at them, giving the guards the chance to react. They burst into a strong sprint, racing towards the figure who was now charging away. Cooper looked around, trying to spot for sabotage, but all of the equipment in this area was unfamiliar, and a glance at Cantrell revealed that she was having the same problem.
Turning a corner, they saw the figure, dressed in gray and black camouflage, holding a gun in their direction, another of the nerve guns he'd faced on the freighter. Before anyone could react, he fired, catching the leading guards and sending them crashing to the floor, their faces locked in pain. He heard something behind him, ducked, rolled and shot, deliberately high and wide, just missing the other man who had been sneaking up in their rear, sending him diving for cover.
More shots rang out, smashing against the walls, their attackers showing no concern for any of the systems they were destroying, though Cooper could see the guards wincing with every shot. The rounds sounded like old UN issue, and the rifles definitely were. He could even just about make out the manufacturer's mark on one of them. They huddled into whatever cover they could find, returning fire when they hoped to have a shot, while Cooper and Cantrell watched and waited.
“Damn it, they've got us flanked!” Trant said.
Turning to the guard commander, Cooper said, “You and your mean deal with the guy behind us. I'll take the one ahead.”
“Watch out, Cooper,” the guardsman replied. “He's not far from an exterior accessway. Don't follow him out onto the hull. It's a long drop.”
“Don't worry,” he said. “I've got this.” Counting three, he fired a pair of shots, keeping their attacker pinned down, then leapt out of the safety of his cover, sprinting forward. He braced himself for another blast from the nerve gun, but his prey turned and fled, choosing the better part of valor as he raced for a hatch.
Behind him, Cantrell followed, pistol in hand, and the two of them chased down their target, gaining with every pace. He'd had plenty of chances to take a shot that would have felled him, but none that he could be sure weren't fatal. This man he wanted to bring back alive, though judging from the scream behind him, Trant had no such ideas in mind.
Just as he was about to grab onto the man's jacket, he escaped through a hatch, the door slamming shut. There was no security panel, at least, not any more, and a pair of dangling wires revealed the secret of the emergency override. Just as he was about to open it, Cantrell grabbed his wrist.
“Might not be a good idea, Gabe.”
“We've got a lot of questions to ask, and I only know one person who might give us the answers.”
She paused for a second, then released him, and he connected the wires, the door sliding up with a loud report. The wind shocked him, blowing in his face, and he took in a deep gulp of the air outside. After all this time, it still felt strange to be in the open air without a suit, especially in such a strange environment.
Gathering his wits around him, he took hold of his pistol and edged out onto the balcony, being sure to stay close to the hull. The safety rail was old, worn, and tattered, and he wasn't going to trust it with his weight, not without a line to secure him. Cantrell followed him, taking cautious steps, testing the strength of the deck with each pace, as though afraid that the whole assembly would tumble away, taking them with it.
He looked out at the view, and instinctively took a step back. It felt as though he was flying through air, with nothing underneath him except frail metal mesh, with sky all around him, twisted clouds and buffeting winds flapping his jacket. Overhead, the balloon loomed large, the material rippling. It seemed ludicrous, that such a city should exist, and he almost expect that realization to send it plummeting from the sky.
Taking a deep breath, he forced himself out onto the balcony, and quickly spotted the figure he was searching for, a nerve gun leveled at his chest. Cantrell had her pistol out, ready to cover him, but held her fire.
“I shoot, you have a fifty-fifty chance of falling,” his voice said.
“If I shoot,” Cantrell replied, “there's no risk at all of you living through it.”
“Let me go,” he said. “You haven't got any stake in this fight.”
“What fight?” Cooper asked. “Are you with the pirates?”
“Is that what they call them now? There's more to this than you know. Your friends aren't nice people.”
“Then tell us what we're facing,” Cooper said. “If you come with me, I'll arrange for you to be taken back to Alamo. I won't promise that we won't turn you back over to the Council, but you'll be given a fair hearing.”
The figure paused, as though pondering for a moment, and began to lower his gun before collapsing to the ground, blood spreading across his front, lurching to the right and tumbling over the rail, down to the storm-tossed surface below. Naxos stepped out, hanging onto another hatch, a pistol in his hand.
“I thought you might need some help,” he said. “Trant's got the other one. Looks like we made clean sweep. Thanks for the assist.”
“Yeah,” Cooper said, looking down. He couldn't even see the surface, not through all the clouds. Odds are the body was still falling, lost forever, taking the secrets he carried with him.
Chapter 7
“I still don't see why you came,” Salazar said, looking at Harper. “You'd be able to get all the information you needed back on Alamo. I'd have sent it across to you quickly enough.”
“I need to be on the spot,” she replied. “Look, based on what we already know, I'm not going to get the run of Skybase, so if I want to gather any on-the-spot intelligence, it has to be here.”
Glancing around to make sure no-one was in sight, he said, “That, and you wanted a chance to hack into the ship's systems in real-time.”
With a smile, she replied, “And all of the data is being transmitted back to Alamo on tight-beam as we speak. If nothing else, it should prove useful to get an idea of what exactly this ship does. I don't buy that they spend all of their time carrying dung.”
“Sub-Lieutenant Salazar to Propulsion Control,” a voice said, over the speaker. “Orbital insertion in five minutes.”
“Sounds like they're singing my song,” he replied. “Come on. This ought to be fun.”
“Fun?” she replied. “Risking a landing on an unknown planet in a ship that predates the first landing on Mars? I think we have different ideas on the meaning of that word.” Her smile belied her words, and the two of them drifted off down the corridor, Salazar taking the lead. They floated past Fitzroy, frowning at a circuit relay he was attempting to repair, the technician focused intently on his work, ignoring the ever-growing cloud of components orbiting him.
Propulsion Control was still a mess, but it was a slightly more organized mess than it had been, a pair of modified shuttle control consoles forced into position, attached by a tangle of cables in front of two crash couches. The viewscreen flickered, a crack in the lower-left side that would have resulted in instant replacement under any other circumstances, a permanent niggling irritation for the pilot.
Tarak was sitting at the controls, frowning at the unfamiliar readings, and waved Salazar over to the other station as soon as he arrived.
“I'm glad you're here. I don't recognize half of this.”
“I thought they'd been laid out to match the controls you already had.” Salazar leaned over, poking one of the readouts, and said, “A lot of this stuff doesn't apply to this ship anyway, so I think you can ignore it.”
“I'd be happier if you took her for the ride in,” he said, waving his hands away. “I'm not sure I trust myself.”
“I see you are quick to cede full control of this ship,” Ortok replied, pushing into the room. “I need to have words with you, Sub-Lieutenant. I've been watching your men work, and I'm appalled at the slipshod way t
hey are undertaking the repairs.”
“What do you mean?”
“Your Spaceman Bartlett was about to throw away a burned out relay before I stopped him, and he wasted two Number Four capacitors. Mindless, senseless misuse of essential materials.”
“Have you any complaints about the quality of the repairs?”
Ortok's frown grew, and he replied, “I suppose I can't say that. Everything seems to work well enough, though I don't know how long they will last based on the other things I am seeing. Why, one of the replacement hatch locks only has a time-to-fail of five years.”
Harper turned, and said, “You've got to understand that we have a very different approach. Our fabrication technology means that we don't have to ration spare parts the way you do. If we need it, we produce it, often in a matter of minutes. Though we usually keep plenty of stores on hand, of course.”
“I don't need to listen to the way you do it. You're on our ship now, and all that matters is the way we do things. If you are perfectly happy to just throw away used equipment, not making any attempt to make use of it, then that is your business, but that isn't the way we operate.”
“Quite right,” Salazar said, flashing a look at Harper.
“Excuse me?” Ortok said.
“I agree. Our practices must seem somewhat wasteful, and given that you don't have access to such technology, it's only reasonable that you would see things that way. I assure you that all the repairs will be conducted expeditiously, and that you will be left with a good quantity of spare parts for future use.”
Frowning, the engineer replied, “As long as the quality of the work is good, I suppose I have no objection.”
“Orbit interface in two minutes,” Tarak said. “If you would, Sub-Lieutenant? I'd better go down to Engineering and make sure everything is fine down there.”
“It is,” Ortok said, bluntly. “I'd think you would want to watch the landing, especially as you seem to have developed a lack of familiarity with the controls.”
Battlecruiser Alamo: Triple-Edged Sword Page 6