Planet Pirates Omnibus

by neetha Napew

  “You see? Three little things, and you can’t clear up all of them. And yet it’s not important. If we had a pattern - if you seemed to have incompletes in all your social science classes - it might matter. But this is nothing, and most of the odd things in your crew’s records are nothing. Still, we must look into all of it, even so silly a thing as a child’s fan club.”

  Among the odd bits Dupaynil turned up in the next week were a young man who’d chosen to use his matrilineal name rather than his far more prominent patrilineal title, and yet another person of heavyworlder genetic background posing as a normal human. Sassinak came in on the interviews of both these, but neither had the unstable personality of the poisoner. The young man insisted that he’d joined Fleet to get away from his father’s influence - he’d been pushed to enter the diplomatic service, but preferred to work with his hands. The heavyworlder said frankly that heavyworlders looked down on him, but that he had found acceptance and even friendships among the lightweights. “If they know I’m from a heavyworld family, they’re afraid of my strength - I can tell by the way they hold back. But I can pass as a strong normal, and that suits me just fine. No, I wouldn’t help heavyworlders expand their influence - why should I? They’re snobs - they teased me and threw me out for being a weakling, as if they really were superior. They’re not. Let ‘em stay on their worlds, and let me go where I fit in.”

  Dupaynil, Sassinak noticed, seemed far more sympathetic to the young man escaping a pushy father than to the heavyworlder. She herself found both convincing.

  They had been on-station a month when their detectors picked up a ship off the normal FTL paths. Its IFF and passive beam gave its ownership as General Freight (again! thought Sass), but from the passive beam they could strip its origin code . . . and that was a heavyworld system.

  Once more the Zaid-Dayan took up the chase, guided by its Ssli perception of the quarry’s disturbance of space. And once more it soon became clear that the quarry was headed for someplace unusual.

  Chapter Fifteen

  “And just what is this?” No one answered the navigation officer’s murmur; Sassinak leaned over to see what identification data were coming up on the screen. Nav went on. “Mapped . . . hmm ... on the EEC survey, Ryxi on the fifth planet, which is on this side of the system, and a human team dropped to do some exploration on the fourth, called Ireta. Wonder why it’s got a name, if it doesn’t have a colony and this was the first exploration team. Something about mesozoic fauna, whatever that means.”

  “New contact: ship on insystem drive boosting out of the fifth planet’s system - “ That went up on the main screen, where they could all see it. “No leech beacon - d’you want to try its IFF, captain?”

  “No - if they’re what I think, another pirate escort, they’ll notice that,” said Sass. “But . . . Ryxi?”

  “Dropped here some forty years ago - colonial permit - “

  “No one’s ever suggested Ryxi were involved in this kind of thing,” said Dupaynil, looking as confused as Sassinak felt. “Certainly not in anything with heavyworlders. They hate them worse than they do normal humans.”

  The Zaid-Dayan crept cautiously after the other two ships, which now seemed to be making for Ireta, a journey of some days on insystem drive. Sassinak wondered what someone might be planning - another “accidental” missile release? Some other dangerous accident? Dupaynil had come up with nothing definite, and although she had moved both the most likely suspects away from their usual duties, that didn’t make her feel any safer. She made sure that none of the same people were assigned duty in the quadrant missile rooms, that the stewards’ duties were rotated differently. What else could she do? Nothing, really.

  Day by day the two target ships arced toward the distant fifth planet. Sassinak had time to look it up in the Index for herself, and check out the reference to “mesozoic.” One of her new Jigs, a biology enthusiast, rattled on to everyone about the possibilities. Huge reptilian beasts from prehuman history on old Terra, superficially similar to some races of reptiloid aliens, but really quite stupid . . . Sassinak grinned to herself. Had she ever had that kind of enthusiasm, and been so unaware of everyone else’s lack of interest? She thought not, but indulged him when he showed her his favorite slides from his files.

  Fordeliton happened into the middle of this, and turned out to be another enthusiast, though more restrained. “Dinosaurs!” he said. “Old Terran, or near enough - “

  “Pirates,” said Sassinak firmly. “Dangerous, or near enough.”

  By the time they were close enough to be sure the quarry was intending to land, Sassinak had to worry what the other ship was doing. This could not be a colony raid, as on Myriad - there was no colony to raid. The ship that had come up from the Ryxi world was not holding a particularly good position for an escort - in fact, it almost seemed to be unaware of the transport. Could it be accidental? A ship on regular movement between planets?

  The transport began to decelerate, dropping toward the planet. Behind, the second vessel seemed to be heading for a stable orbit. So far neither had detected the Zaid-Dayan in its stealth mode. But she could not take the cruiser to the surface leaving a possible enemy up in orbit. . . yet she wanted to be sure just what the transport was up to. She needed two ships . . . and there was a way. . . .

  “Take a shuttle down, and see where they’re going. This world doesn’t have a landing grid, that we know of - hard to believe they’re actually going to land, but what else could they be doing? Stay in their dead zone, until they’re committed to a site, and then if you can possibly get away unseen, do it. Stay below and behind, until their landing pattern - “

  “What about a landing party?” Timran’s dark eyes flashed.

  “Ensign, I just said I wanted you to observe and return without alarming them - you don’t need a landing party. Just stay behind ‘em, low and fast, and once they’re down get back here. If I give you a troop of marines, you’ll try to find a use for ‘em.”

  Ford shook his head as they watched the ensigns clamber into the shuttle hatch. “You know Timran would try to take on that entire transport by himself - “

  “Yes, that’s why I wanted Gori with him. Gori’s got sense, besides being a good shuttle pilot. I just hope they follow orders.”

  “Oh, they will. You’ve got ‘em scared proper.” The docking bay alarm hooted, and the load crew scurried for airlocks. The docking hatch opened, flowerlike, and the shuttle elevator lifted it level with the ship’s outer hull. Sassinak watched the flight deck officer signal the shuttle to start engines, and then boost away from the Zaid-Dayan.

  The shuttle made an uneventful approach to the transport, and on their screens appeared to be snugged into the transport’s blind spot. From high orbit, the Zaid-Dayan’s technicians observed the next few descending circuits of the planet. Nothing indicated that the transport had realized it had a tail. Nor did any signal come from the ground. Then Com picked up a landing beacon, and radio signals from below.

  “There’s the grid . . . weird . . . it’s on the edge of that plateau.”

  “City? Town?”

  “Nothing. Well. . . some infrared indication of cleared fields, plantings . . . but nothing big enough to put in a grid like that.”

  “We can take that out easily enough,” said Arly. “One lousy transport and landing grid - “

  “But what are they after? There’s no colony to raid for slaves, nothing to raid for minerals or other goods. Why’s there a grid here, and what are they doing here?”

  “Wait a minute - that’s got to be artificial - “ Onto the main screen went a shot of something that looked like a working open-pit mine. “I haven’t seen anything like that without someone nearby. A mine? Iron? Copper?”

  Sassinak looked at the puzzled faces around her, and grinned. It had to be important. And this time she had a degree of freedom to act. “A landing grid, a beacon, an open pit mine, and no city - on a world supposedly not open for colonization. I think it�
�s time we stripped our friend’s IFF.”

  “Right, captain.” The Com officer flipped a switch, and then came back on line, sounding puzzled, “Captain, it’s a colony supply hauler, on contract to that Ryxi colony.”

  “And I’m a rich ambassador’s wife. Try again.” A screen came up at her right hand as the Com officer insisted. “Nothing wrong with the IFF signal, captain, I’d swear it. Look.”

  It looked clean. Mazer Star, captained by one Argemon Godheir, owned by Kirman, Vini & Godheir, Ltd., registration numbers, crew size, mass cargo and volume . . . every detail crisp and unmistakable. Com had already queried the database: Mazer Star was a thirty-seven year old hull from a respectable shipyard, refitted twice at the normal intervals, ownership as given, and no mysterious disappearances or changes in use.

  “So what is it doing here?” asked Sass, voicing everyone’s confusion. She looked back at the Com section, and the Com watch all shrugged. “Well. They’re acting as if we don’t exist, so let’s see how close we can get.”

  Whatever Mazer Star was doing, it was not looking for a cruiser in its area; Sassinak began to feel a wholly irrational glee at how close they were able to come. Either their stealth gear was better than even she had supposed, or the stubby little insystem trader had virtually no detection gear (or the most incompetent radar operator in seven systems). Finally they were within tractor distance, and Sassinak ordered the shields full on and stealth gear off. And a transmission by tight-beam radio, although she felt she could almost have shouted across the space between ships. Certainly could have, in an atmosphere.

  “Mazer Star, Mazer Star! FSP Cruiser Zaid-Dayan to Mazer Star - “

  “What the - who the formative novations are you! Get off our tail or we’ll - “ That voice was quickly replaced by another, and a screen image of a stocky man in a captain’s uniform.

  “Mazer Star, Godheir commanding, to Federation ship Zaid-Dayan . . . where did you come from? Did you receive the same distress message?”

  Distress message? What was he talking about? Sassinak took over from the Com officer, and spoke to him herself.

  “Captain Godheir, this is Commander Sassinak of the Zaid-Dayan. We’re tracking pirates, captain. What do you mean, distress beacon? Can you explain your presence in company with a heavyworlder transport?”

  “Heavyworlder transport? Where?” On the screen, his face looked both ways as if he expected one to come bursting through his bulkheads.

  “Below - it’s going in to land. Now what’s this about a distress beacon? And what kind of range and detection gear do you have?”

  His answers, if a bit disorganized, quickly made sense out of the past several days. On long-term contract to supply the Ryxi colony, he’d recently returned to the system from a Ryxi relay-point. “You know they prefer to hire human crews,” he said with a twinkle. “Routine flying’s too boring for them, or something like that. We’d picked up some incoming specialists, and the supplies. Unloaded over there - “ He waved in a way that Sassinak interpreted as meaning the planet in question. “Then we heard about some kind of problem here, a human exploration team that needed help, maybe a mutiny situation. So we came over - we can land without a grid, you see - But if you’re here instead, then I guess we’re not needed. You certainly gave us a start, Commander, that you did - “

  “You may be needed yet,” said Sass. “How were you supposed to find this missing team?” Godheir gave her the reference numbers, and said he’d detected a faint beacon signal from near the coast. While they were talking, Com suddenly waved wildly.

  Timran, piloting the number one shuttle of the Zaid-Dayan, felt for the first time since coming on active duty like a real Fleet officer. On the track of slavers or pirates or something, in command of his own ship, however small. Actually it was better small - more of an adventure. Gori, hunched in the copilot’s seat, was actually pale.

  “This is really it,” Timran said, with another quick sideways glance. He had said it before.

  “Don’t look at me, Tim - keep an eye on your sensors.”

  “We’re doing just fine.” In his mind’s eye, he saw himself reporting back to Commander Sassinak, telling her exactly what she needed to know, saw her smiling at him, praising him . . .

  “Tim! You’re sliding up on him!”

  “It’s all right.” It wasn’t, quite, but he eased back on the power, and settled the shuttle into the center of the transport’s blind cone, where turbulence from its drive prevented its sensors from detecting them. It was harder than he’d thought, keeping the shuttle in the safe zone. But he could do it, and he’d follow it down to the bottom of the sea, if he had to. Too bad he didn’t have enough armament to take it himself. He toyed with the idea of enabling the little tractor beam that the shuttles used around space stations, what the engineering chief called the “parking brake,” but realized it wouldn’t have much effect on something the mass of that transport.

  “This is what I thought about during finals,” he said, hoping to get some kind of reaction from Gori.

  “Huh. No wonder you came in only twelfth from the bottom.”

  “Somebody has to be on the bottom. If they didn’t think I could do the work, they wouldn’t have let me graduate. And the captain gave me this job - “

  “To get you out of her hair while she deals with that escort or whatever it is. Krims, Tim, you spend too much time daydreaming about glory, and not enough - look out!”

  Reflexively, Tim yanked on the controls, and the shuttle skimmed over a jagged peak, its drive whining at the sudden load. “She said stay low,” he said, but Gori snorted.

  “You could let me fly. I can keep my mind on my work.”

  “She gave it to me!” In that brief interval, the transport had pulled ahead. “And I’ve got better ratings as a shuttle pilot.”

  Gori said nothing more, which suited Timran fine right then. He had cut it a little close - although he was certainly low enough for fine-detail on the tapes. Now he concentrated on the landscape ahead, wild and rough as it was, and tried to anticipate where the transport would land. There - that plateau. “Look at that,” he breathed. “A landing grid. A monster - “ The transport sank toward it, seeming even larger now that it was leaving its own element and coming to rest.

  He barely saw the movement - something small, but clearly made, not natural - when a bolt of colored light from the transport reached out to it. “Look out!” he yelled at Gori, and slammed his hand on the tractor beam control. The shuttle lurched, as the badly aimed beam grabbed for anything in its way. Tim’s hands raced over the controls, bringing the shuttle to a near hover, and catching the distant falling object in the tractor beam just before it hit a low cliff.

  “An airsled!” breathed Gori. “Oh gods, Tim, what have you done!”

  “Did you see those murderers?” His teeth were clenched as he worked the beam to set the airsled down as gently as possible. “Those dirty, rotten, slimy - “

  “Tim! That’s not the point! We’re supposed to be invisible!”

  All the latent romanticism burst free. “We’re Fleet! We just saved lives, that’s what we’re supposed to do.”

  “That’s not what the captain ordered us to do. Tim, you just told everyone, from the transport to whoever they’re meeting, that we’re here. That Fleet’s here.”

  “So ... so we’ll just . . . mmm . . . we’ll just tell them they’re under arrest, for ... uh ... attempting to ...uh...”

  “Illegal use of proscribed weaponry in a proscribed system is one charge you’re looking for.” Gori was punching buttons on his console. “Kipling’s copper Coms! The captain’s going to be furious, and I’ve heard about her being furious. She’s going to eat us alive, buddy, and it’s all your fault.”

  “She’d want us to save lives ...” Tim didn’t sound quite so certain now. For one thing, that transport had lifted, and then settled itself firmly on the grid. He sent the shuttle forward again, slowly, and wondered whether to stand gua
rd over the airsled or threaten the transport, or what. It had seemed so simple at the time . . .

  The voice in his earplug left him in no doubt. “I told you,” the captain’s crisp voice said, “to follow that transport down cautiously, with particular care not to be noticed. Did you understand that order?”

  “Yes, ma’am, but - “

  “Yet I find that you have engaged a possibly hostile vessel, making sure that you would be noticed; you may have damaged Federation citizens - “ That wasn’t fair at all; it was the crash that damaged them, and he hadn’t caused the crash ... at least, he hadn’t shot the airsled, although his handling of the tractor beam had been less than deft. “Moreover, you’ve made it necessary for me to act - or abandon you, and if you were alone that would be a distinct temptation!” Gori smirked at this; he was getting the same tirade in his own earplug. “Now that you’ve started a riot, young man, you’d better stay in control of things until I get there.”

  “But how - ?” Tim began, but the com cut off. He was breathing fast, and felt cold. He looked over at Gori, no longer smirking. “What do we do now?”

  Gori, predictably, had a reference. “Fleet Landing Force Directives, Chapter 17, paragraph 34.2 - “

  “I don’t care where it is - what does it say?”

  Gori went on, pale but determined, with his quotation. “It says if the landing party - which is us - is outnumbered or outgunned, and Fleet personnel are in danger of capture or injury - “