An uplink light flashed in the lower corner of Erik’s vision — it was Second Lieutenant Karle. “Go ahead Second Lieutenant.”
“Sir, just to inform you that PH-1 is loaded and we are about to depart.”
“Very good Mr Karle. Just remember, Lieutenant Dale has thirty years of experience at this. On all security matters, I want you to do exactly what he tells you, when he tells you to do it.”
“Yessir. I get the feeling he wouldn’t leave me much choice anyway.
Erik smiled. “You’re exactly right. Please tell Lieutenant Hausler not to frighten the local traffic too badly.”
“I’ll do that sir. See you soon.”
“Good hunting Lieutenant.”
And, “I heard that LC,” Lieutenant Hausler added before the coms cut. PH-1 was headed for Vola Station, where several shipyards had been very interested in the job offer when they’d heard the money on offer. The Vola moon was a closer orbit to Rhea than Joma Station and its Joma moon. Closer orbits were always faster to reach, but any emergency rescue from Phoenix would mean plunging deep into Rhea’s gravity well. Erik decided that he’d never like having his people away from Phoenix on shuttle missions.
“It’ll take a lot longer than one hundred hours for any local fabricators to make us some new vipers,” Kaspowitz remarked.
“Pardon or no pardon,” said Erik, “I’d like our magazines full before we head anywhere. Human space included.” Kaspowitz was studying him, as though wryly curious. “What?”
“When all our missing crew came out of Europa. Did you think for a moment maybe Commander Huang was on board?”
Marines doing security for senior officers usually did a good job pretending not to listen to these conversations. But now, many eyes glanced his way. Erik shrugged, pretending unconcern. “It crossed my mind.”
“Curious dilemma,” Kaspowitz suggested. Erik understood the unasked question too well. Would you be pleased, or relieved, to relinquish command at this time? Commander Huang had been on Phoenix for seven years, all of them as Pantillo’s second-in-command. Prior to recent events, she’d held infinitely more respect on the ship than Erik had.
And for a brief moment on Europa’s dock, he’d been terrified. Terrified that Huang would come down that ramp in person, declare herself to be Phoenix’s true commander and here to finish her old captain’s work in his name, and that all the crew would flock to her in preference to him. Which was insane, because in this situation he should have been thrilled to have someone infinitely more experienced in charge. Phoenix would certainly have been the better for it, and all her crew, Lisbeth included, would have been that much safer. He thought again of that terrifying instant when the three sard ships had jumped, and he’d realised that they were coming at him far, far faster than he’d expected, and that he should have left thirty seconds ago. Everyone had nearly died in that one lazy, presumptuous mistake, and his nails now dug into his palms as he recalled it. Huang would never have misjudged it that badly.
“Wouldn’t have mattered if she had come down the ramp,” Lieutenant Alomaim said coolly. “Lieutenant Jersey got left behind by mistake — Commander Huang did it on purpose. Crew wouldn’t have her back, sir. More to the point, the Major wouldn’t have her back.”
Which made him feel a little better. But only a little, because while the approval of marines was nice, they weren’t any more qualified to know who the best pilots were than he was to know who the best marines were.
The transit car came to a whining halt at what Erik’s uplinks told him was their stop. Bravo Platoon exited the train first to clear the platform… and immediately weapons came up, with yells and warning shouts over coms. Stationers on the platform shrieked and ducked, scampering out of the line of fire as two privates grabbed Erik and pulled him down, crouched on the train floor with weapons ready.
“You get down right now you bug motherfucker!” someone was shouting. Sard on the platform, Erik guessed.
“Hold it!” came Alomaim’s voice over the top. “Everyone just hold it! They’re not armed that I can see, no shooting with the civilians on the platform!” The train’s doors began to close once more, but someone hit the override and everything froze, an emergency alarm blaring with red lights. “Everyone cool it, just back away! Translators on, just back away!”
Erik wanted to see, but couldn’t past his bodyguards. He pulled his pistol from its holster, his only personal weapon. If he ever had to use it, marines would consider themselves failed in their task of protecting him. Past the yelling civilians and confusion on coms, he could hear a high-pitched shrill, like cicadas in rainforest, only much louder.
“Okay, up! Kamov, move the LC now!” And Lance Corporal Kamov gestured Erik, Kaspowitz and Dufresne up, the other two also with pistols drawn, eyes wide with alarm. They came out onto the transit platform, now mostly cleared of civvies. Marines stood in several groups, massive rifles levelled at the tall, thin figures of sard. Insectoid faces turned Erik’s way as he exited, multiple beady black eyes tracking him, and the cicada-shrill rose several pitches.
“Yeah, you turn that shit down!” someone snarled — on coms it was impossible to tell who.
Erik and the officers were quickly whisked down a side corridor, one group of marines pulling off the platform ahead, the others falling in behind as they moved. He’d only counted seven sard on the platform, none of them armed.
“Lieutenant Alomaim,” he said. “Was that an attack?”
“Just an encounter, sir,” said Alomaim on coms from somewhere behind him. “Taking no chances today.”
They emerged from the access corridor onto the station concourse, an open floor with big information screens flashing colourful scenes at passing crowds. Now those crowds were staring with uncertainty at these thumping, armoured humans who came surging through their midst. Station security in dark-red uniforms moved to confront them, one of them shouting in Palapu as his translator-speaker joined in harsh, metallic English.
“You no point guns at peaceful sard guest! Peaceful sard guest want to catch train too! This not human station, this barabo station! You behave like civilised person!”
“Move asshole!” was Gunnery Sergeant Brice’s reply, and the security got out of the way before they were run over.
“Not a human station yet,” another marine corrected the security man with passing contempt. Erik wondered if it were possible that humans on Joma Station could outstay their welcome.
“I don’t think they were tracking us,” Kaspowitz said at Erik’s side as they strode, breathing hard. “That looked like an accident.”
“No chances with sard,” Erik replied. “Sard aren’t real sneaky, it’s not like they can follow us unnoticed, on this station. Manufacturing an encounter like that could be the only way for them to see where we’re going. And test our responses.”
“And then report everything they’ve seen to some other sard ship waiting out beyond the system rim,” Dufresne agreed close behind them. “I reckon we watch for any of those sard ships leaving the station, fair bet they’re going to report on us.”
And they still had no real idea as to why those three super-advanced sard ships were trying to kill them. More than any chance encounter on a train station, that put Erik’s nerves on edge most of all.
* * *
Joma Station bridge was on the upper rim on the far side of the station from Phoenix’s berth. Directly above it, with an elevated viewing level above the main rim, was the Stationmaster’s personal quarters. It was spacious, with the earthy decoration typical of barabo — a thick floor rug, wall hangings of what looked like decorated tree bark, and lots of leafy green pot-plants.
Erik, Kaspowitz and Dufresne sat in deep reclining chairs across a low table, while Lieutenant Alomaim remained standing with Private Cruz, armour tension tuned down to minimum so the whine and rattle wouldn’t be distracting. Out the wide viewing window, the huge upward curve of the station rim ended barely five hundred meters away, re
placed with an intricate mass of scaffolding, crawling with robots and workers.
Opposite them were the Stationmaster, and the Captain of a station-defence warship, the Rai Jang. His name was Jen Fan, and he was concerned. “You not know why sard want kill you?” He spoke English quite well, and with great skepticism. His black beard and hair were neatly trimmed, and he had odd shaving marks in his neck that Erik hadn’t seen before. His uniform was black and grey, also most restrained for a barabo.
“We don’t know,” Erik replied. “We thought maybe our own commander, Supreme Commander Chankow, had paid them to kill us. Sard are sometimes mercenary.” Frowns from the barabo. “Mercenary… um, soldiers who fight for money.” Comprehending nods. Erik was not surprised to find senior barabo here speaking English. Everyone in this space was just marking time until the human Fleet arrived. “But now we hear that Supreme Commander Chankow is not in charge anymore, and might even be dead. So maybe he did buy those sard, and maybe they aren’t aware yet that he’s gone. I don’t know how that affects a contract, in the sard mind.”
Captain Jen nodded, intensely serious. Erik had not yet met a barabo quite so intensely serious. He didn’t see any harm in telling him this much of Phoenix’s affairs — everyone knew Phoenix was renegade from human command, even if the exact details of the dispute eluded them. And they would shortly know, if they didn’t already, that UF Fleet’s command had now changed, in highly-questionable circumstances. This much honesty would cost him nothing, and gain him a little trust at least.
“But you say sard ship are advanced?” Captain Jen pressed.
“Very advanced,” Erik agreed. “Phoenix was challenged.”
Captain Jen blinked. “Three sard ships not normal to… to challenge Fee-nix?”
Erik shook his head. “No. Not normally. Do you have any idea how the sard might have such advanced ships?”
“Not know,” Jen muttered. “Very bad, this news. Tavalai… ten years ago? All this, tavalai everywhere.” He waved a hairy, long-fingered hand at the station view. “Tavalai ship, big warship. Sard come here, sard space close, but sard scared tavalai. Fear tavalai, yes?”
“Yes,” Erik agreed. “Tavalai gave sard ships, guns, everything. Tavalai understand sard, no one else does.”
Jen nodded vigorously. “Yes, this. Just this. But now, tavalai go. No more tavalai, tavalai lose war to human.” With an accusing stare. “And now, sard here, sard there, sard everywhere. Now you say advanced sard, big sard ship. This very bad. If human no come here? No come to Kazak? Sard take Kazak, you bet. Bad news for human too, yes?”
“You’re barabo fleet?” Erik asked. “Barabo military?”
Captain Jen nodded without enthusiasm. “Am that. Soldier.”
“Why can’t you fight sard? This is barabo space, but barabo don’t fight for it.”
The barabo’s wide mouth turned down in a jaw-grinding frustration. “Because barabo like party,” he said bitterly. “Barabo like fun, like good time, barabo no like fight. Some barabo fight — me, friend captain, friend crew. Few barabo, only few. Other barabo not come. Barabo government give us no money, yes? We three ship here, Joma Station base. Good ship, tavalai ship. But not big ship. Fast, but small gun — you see.”
Erik nodded. He had seen — they were tukala-class cruisers, agile and fast, and relatively cheap to produce in large numbers. But even all three on Joma Station weren’t a serious threat to Phoenix, and most tukala-class captains they’d run into in the war had had the sense to stay clear where possible.
“You know,” Kaspowitz said conversationally, “there are humans who say that if history had turned out differently, humans could be a lot like barabo. Not fighting much, mostly self-interested. Earth was very self-interested, lots of old civilisation that found itself far more interesting than anything else out in space.”
Captain Jen nodded solemnly. “But Earth destroy.”
“Yes. You had the tavalai for neighbours, so you never had to fight for anything. We had the krim.” He shrugged. “And so we never stopped fighting, one thousand years and more. And with all our old roots destroyed, we had nothing to look back at, we could only look forward. Expansion and conquest became how we measured our progress. Military success, defeating our enemies. That’s all our history. So don’t be sad that you’re not like us. A strong military is good, but we had to pay a terrible price to get one.”
“And barabo going to pay bad price without one,” Jen replied. There was real fear in his dark eyes. But not cowardice, because this fear was not for himself. “I sorry ‘bout Earth. In my culture, we speak of great sorrow, we drink to ancestors or they get angry with us.” He raised his teacup. “Earth, ri-jen guhar ari-jen.”
He drank, and they all copied. Erik was touched, and saw his fellow officers felt the same. He indicated to Kaspowitz’s bag with his eyes, suggestively.
“Oh, speaking of drinking,” said Kaspowitz, and unzipped the bag. He pulled out one of the bottles they’d been saving for these situations, and presented it to Stationmaster Rang Gan, who had been quietly listening. Rang Gan leaned forward to peer at the bottle from within bristling dreadlocks and thick beard. In many barabo cultures, a head like a giant bird’s nest was a sign of dignified age and learning, for men at least. And sometimes for women.
“What drink?” asked the Stationmaster.
“It’s called whisky. It’s made from grain, very old recipe, it goes back to an Earth-place called Britain, one and a half thousand years ago. The grains were brought into space with us, and this one was made on New Punjab in William’s System, by the same old recipe.”
Rang Gan’s eyes lit up, and he clapped his hands and spoke on coms. Quickly some drinking glasses were brought, and the whisky poured for all. Phoenix officers were not supposed to drink on duty, but sometimes foreign customs demanded that rule be slightly bent. A sip, and Rang Gan’s eyes lit up even more. Barabo did love a drink, and this tale of an ancient drink from long-lost Earth was irresistable to those who considered themselves cultured. They talked for a while of human drinks and barabo drinks, and all agreed that this could be a great luxury trade between human and barabo.
And then, once the level of the bottle had dropped a little more, Erik leaned forward in his chair, and smiled at the older man. “Now, Stationmaster. We have noticed that on Phoenix’s portion of the docks, there are currently very few security personnel. Do you think we could see this situation addressed? Better that your people keep the civilians away, with their small guns, than we do it with our big guns.”
* * *
“Rang Gan good man,” said Captain Jen as they left the office through the lobby of busy barabo at big display screens. A work crew were noisily discussing ongoing station work on a huge technical hologram, hard hats and safety vests amidst more formal barabo office robes. “But quiet man. No push hard, no make trouble.”
“Hmm,” said Erik, eyeing the activity as they walked. “Could be a problem in a station like this? I notice construction is far behind schedule.”
Jen smiled humourlessly. “Everyone notice. Station damn scared. Big business here, big money, but with tavalai gone, no defence. Saying among my people — when tree branch bend, smallest person seem biggest weight. Many barabo sitting on tree branch, see? Hungry animal below. Big barabo want throw small barabo off branch, make branch not break, even though small barabo make small weight. Big barabo hope hungry animal eat him last, yes?”
His gaze fixed on Erik with hard meaning. Erik nodded slowly. “I think I understand. Thank you for the warning.”
“And you have more that whisky? My ship take donation.” With a very barabo grin.
Erik grinned back. “Make you a trade. You give me a bottle of your best barabo drink, I get you whisky.”
“Good,” Jen agreed. They shook hands, barabo-style. “Good travel, Fee-nix.”
“Good travel, Rai Jang.”
They left the main lobby heading opposite ways, into a heavily-trafficked hallway wit
h busy barabo offices on all sides. “I’m not sure I understood that warning,” Dufresne said cautiously, as Gunnery Sergeant Brice and half of First Squad took position in front. “He was warning that the Stationmaster would toss us to the sard?”
“Worse than that,” Erik said grimly. “Joma Station wants humans to take over protection for Kazak where the tavalai left off. That means Fleet. If Fleet wants us dead, Fleet could pay the Stationmaster, and he’d facilitate that however he liked.”
“Wait a moment… Captain Jen works for the Stationmaster, doesn’t he?”
“Now you see what he’s warning us.”
“Damn,” Dufresne murmured.
“Everything’s ‘damn’ out here,” said Kaspowitz.
“LC,” came Second Lieutenant Abacha’s voice on com override. “I have priority scan, jump entry, one new signal, looks like combat velocity. Trajectory is straight for Rhea, looks like it came from Sector-Q18, Navcomp says about nine marked possibilities in that direction, Nav is processing them now.”
“I copy that Scan,” said Erik, not breaking stride. Alomaim gave the signal for everyone to walk faster, listening as they all were. “Tell me the moment you have firm ID.”
“Yessir. Sir, Scancomp says ninety-nine percent match, tavalai combat carrier, ibranakala-class.” And Erik’s heart skipped a beat. If there was one class of ship in all the galaxy that could nearly match Phoenix ton-for-ton, it was the tavalai’s major combat carrier. In the war, the appearance of an ibranakala-class on scan would send a cold shiver up the spines of any human crew watching.
“Lieutenant Alomaim!” Erik called ahead. “Priority recall now, let’s get to a shuttle berth!” And they broke into a run without Alomaim even needing to order, heading for the nearest express elevator cluster. “Phoenix I am on priority recall, get me a shuttle to the nearest berth immediately, Lieutenant Alomaim is coordinating.”
Drysine Legacy (The Spiral Wars Book 2) Page 17