THE BLACK FLEET CRISIS #3 - TYRANTS_TEST

by Michael P. Kube-Mcdowell

  "Oh," said Threepio. "I see."

  "Lando--" "Leave me alone, Lobot," Lando said, his tone underlining the

  warning. "I'm going to take this pile of cheap cybernetic junk

  apart.

  I'm going to burn his arms and legs into little pieces so that I'll

  have something to throw at the boarding party. Say, how would you like

  his backplate to use as a shield?"

  "Lando, listen," Lobot insisted. "The firing has stopped."

  Lando swung his head around. "So it has. But we're not moving. I

  don't think she's gonna move again." He looked back at Threepio.

  "Neither are you."

  "Artoo--Artoo, where are you? Master Lando has gone mad. You must

  protect me. I don't deserve to die."

  "Almost nobody does," Lando said, pulling out the cutting blaster.

  "But we die anyway. Be philosophical."

  "Lando, wait," said Lobot. "We know this ship.

  We have the advantage over anyone coming aboard.

  Whateve} brings them here can as easily take us back."

  "Sure--as prisoners," said Lando. "I've visited enough prisons, thank

  you. I don't intend to be captured."

  "All right, then," Lobot said. "Let's think about how to fight them

  and win. Let's use our advantage.

  Forget Threepio. What he did is a distraction, and raging over it is a

  waste of time."

  With a growl, Lando twisted and pointed the cutting blaster at the

  forward entry portal. Its beam lit the chamber briefly and harshly,

  leaving a meter-wide hole that did not close.

  "She's really hurting," Lando said, shaking his head. "All

  right--Lobot, Artoo, let's go. We have to

  move quickly." He pointed toward Threepio. "Golden Boy stays

  here."

  "Lando---" Lobot began.

  "He'll just slow us down."

  "Lando--" "But if we leave him here, maybe he'll slow them down. A

  diversion. Who knows--maybe they won't even blow him to bits," said

  Lando. "Come on."

  "Where are we going?"

  "Chamber twenty-one." Lando jetted toward the hole he had blasted, and

  the others followed him through.

  So did Threepio's plaintive voice. "You can't abandon me here in the

  dark--Artoo--please--" Artoo whimpered sympathetically, but he did not

  turn back.

  Nearly five light-years Rimside from the pulsar 2GS-91E20, the powerful

  external worklights on the under curve of Lady Luck's bow stabbed out

  into the ebony void toward the target Colonel Pakkpekatt was

  tracking.

  "It's too small by half," said Colonel Hammax, looking up from the

  displays and out through the viewports, straining to pick out what the

  NRI deep-contact list called Anomaly 2249.

  "Or it is now only half what it was. We will continue," said

  Pakkpekatt, bobbing his head.

  Hammax glanced back down. "Target is now sixty-one thousand meters

  dead ahead."

  "Tell me, Colonel--how is it that a personal yacht has a sensor system

  that appears to have resolution comparable to a front-line intelligence

  picket and better range--far superior to that on a cruiser like

  Glorious?"

  "Shorter procurement cycle," Hammax said. "He buys what he needs,

  without having to get the permission of anyone who sits in an office

  far from the consequences of saying no."

  "And what is his need?"

  Hammax shrugged. "Considering that this ship mounts only a single

  low-grade laser cannon, sensors like that might help keep you out of a

  lot of trouble."

  "That does not answer my question," Pakkpekatt said. "Who is this

  Lando Calrissian? This bridge belongs to a meticulous professional,

  someone who insists on the best tools and on knowing how to use them.

  The storage holds belong to a mercenary or a brigand, a man who

  respects no rule but expediency. The personal quarters belong to a

  sybarite, a self-indulgent hedonist who surrounds himself with soft

  pleasures. Which one is Calrissian?"

  "I didn't know the baron before he came aboard Glorious," Hammax

  said.

  "But by reputation, Colonel, he's all three."

  "They could not abide each other," Pakkpekatt stated firmly. "Such a

  man would never be content in any of his pursuits. He would always be

  drawn else-where--the hedonist to purpose, the brigand to security, the

  perfectionist to impulsiveness, and on. You understand?"

  "Humans are contradictory creatures," said Hammax.

  "Forty thousand meters."

  "That I know, Colonel--but can you tell me why they think it a

  strength?" Pakkpekatt asked.

  "I think that's the first of the contradictions," Hammax said with a

  grin.

  "You are no help to me," the Hortek said, annoyed.

  "Go and wake the others. It is time."

  Before Lady Luck had closed another five thousand meters on the unknown

  object tagged by NRI trackers as Anomaly 2249, all four members of the

  team were at their stations.

  On the bridge, Pakkpekatt was handling the piloting duties, Taisden was

  monitoring the sensor matrix, and Hammax was controlling the laser

  cannon by means of a lightweight targeting headset. Aft on the

  enclosed observation deck, Pleck tended the bank of

  NRI-issue tracking and holo imagers he and Taisden had installed.

  It was becoming a familiar drill, but Pakkpekatt did not allow them to

  become casual about it. The first five anomalies they had investigated

  had included a burned-out Modern starfreighter, an abandoned bulk-cargo

  barge apparently holed by a collision, and a sizable section of an

  ancient deep-space antenna--all harmless. But they had also found a

  fully operational Kuat Ranger running with a blacked-out telesponder,

  which fled at their approach, and a live Ilthani space mine, which

  Hammax detonated With a precise burst from the yacht's laser cannon.

  At three thousand meters, it became clear that Anomaly 2249 was not the

  Teljkon vagabond or any part of it. The work floods illuminated a

  metal mesh cylinder some sixty meters long, capped by solid metal

  spheres fifteen meters across and studded with circular metal

  fittings.

  It was slowly turning end over end, rotating around a slightly

  eccentric center of gravity.

  "What in blazes is that?" Hammax asked. "Space-ship?

  Probe? I don't recognize the configuration."

  "Nor do I," said Pakkpekatt. "But I know what it is not." He dragged

  a datapad toward him and consulted the report provided to him by the

  keepers of NRI's network of stationary blackball-tracking buoys.

  "Anomaly ten-thirty-three, near Carconth, is the next highest

  probability candidate."

  "Colonel?"

  "Yes, Agent Pleck?"

  "Could we give this one a few more minutes--get in to maybe five

  hundred meters and do a flyaround? I'd like to be able to resolve all

  the hull detail for the analysts, and there may be markings on the far

  side."

  "I am not interested in performing any extra services for the Analysis

  Section," Pakkpekatt said curtly, turning Lady Luck away from the

  mystery object and onto a heading for Carconth. "Let them clear their

  anomalies themsel
ves. Colonel Hammax, retract the cannon pod. Agent

  Pleck, lock down your imagers. Hy perspace in one minute. This will

  be a nine-hour jump, so we'll make the watch change now."

  Apart from the ugly smell it left hanging in the air, Lando had no

  qualms about burning a path through the chain of chambers for himself

  and the others. If the ship survived what was almost certainly more

  serious damage elsewhere, closing the wounds Lando was making would be

  no problem--and if the ship was already doomed, the wounds he was

  making were irrelevant.

  But Lobot quickly became uncomfortable watching Lando do it. After

  only four chambers and four black-edged burnholes, Lobot caught Lando

  and stayed his hand before he could make the fifth.

  "Can't we at least try each portal before we destroy it?" he

  pleaded.

  "Do you have some reason to think the vagabond is recovering?" Lando

  asked, pulling his arm free and pointing the blaster ahead.

  Lobot cringed as the beam burned a hole into the next chamber. "I

  don't know what's happening," he said. "I do know that we are leaving

  a trail that will be no challenge to follow, a fact which makes our

  flight futile. The boarding parties will simply find us in the last

  chamber."

  A new sound reached them as Lando stopped and looked back. It was a

  series of wet-sounding percussive reports, akin to the sound of a stone

  falling into soft mud.

  "Fluids blowing under pressure," Lando said, craning his neck. "I

  heard a bad fuel slug pop once, sounded a lot like that." He looked

  back at Lobot. "Yeah, you're right. We won't be hard to follow. But

  the darkness helps us, and we don't have to be conveniently waiting for

  them at the end of the line."

  "Is that your whole plan?" Lobot demanded. "Do you think Threepio

  will have them coming after us so recklessly that we can surprise an

  entire boarding party with hand tools?"

  "My plan is to postpone the confrontation," Lando said. "That's all I

  have going right now. I'm only thinking about putting some distance

  between us and whoever's coming in back there."

  "Then what about making more than one hole?

  Make them make a decision. Get them to split up."

  "I'd gladly burn some more holes to make it harder for them to follow

  us, but I don't know what I'd be cutting into," said Lando. "And I

  sure don't want to increase the odds of burning through into vacuum."

  "The topography of the ship does not make any chamber face coterminous

  with the hull," said Lobot.

  "When you placed the sensor limpetre" "We don't know what spaces have

  been breached by the attack," Lando said. "I could even hit vacuum

  going straight ahead through the portals. I'm telling you--" Just then

  the shoulder joint of Lobot's contact suit bumped gently against the

  face of the chamber. Moments later, Lando, too, drifted into a solid

  barrier.

  "Ship's moving again," Lando said.

  "Just barely moving."

  "Changing direction, too."

  "Under way, or under tow?"

  "No telling from here," Lando said. "But more likely under way--there

  hasn't been enough time to sweep the ship, and it'd be risky to take

  her under tow until that was finished. Come on." Lando jetted toward

  the opening he had made, grabbed the edge, and pulled himself

  through.

  What he saw as he pointed his lights and his blaster at the opposite

  end of the chamber startled him to speechlessness. The portal was

  already irising open.

  As Lando began to retreat he swiped at his suit controls with his

  gloved hand, killing the lights. Behind him, Lobot took the cue and

  did the same. But even after Artoo obeyed the instruction Lobot placed

  in his language register, the chamber remained faintly lit by the glow

  from a narrow ring encircling each of its open portals--all six of

  them.

  "Lando--" "I see, I see," Lando said.

  "Lando, those are the STAFF ONLY doors you were talking about. What's

  going on?"

  "I'm not sure." He jetted diagonally to the nearest of the four

  previously unknown portals for chamber 229 and stole a peek through

  it.

  "What can you see?"

  "More of the same, only different," Lando said heading for the portal

  to chamber 228. "Check the one behind us."

  Both the chamber ahead and the one they had just left were also now

  showing multiple portals lit by glow-rings.

  Some of the new portals opened to tiny dead-end chambers, others to

  narrow cylindrical passageways, still others to the vast interspace

  Lando had discovered when planting the sensor limpet, "Any ideas?"

  Lando asked Lobot.

  "Possibly. Rule-based logic must be strictly prioritized, following a

  conditional decision tree," said Lobot. "The first thing the ship did

  was to seal all portals, giving the highest priority to containing the

  damage--a reasonable response to an attack, especially if there was a

  hull breach. Then, after an inventory of the damage, the next highest

  priority was given to restoring freedom of movement, perhaps to

  facilitate repairs."

  "Or escape," said Lando. "Are you saying you think this means the

  attack is over?"

  "It doesn't matter," said Lobot. "The ship has thrown all the doors

  open. We may never have another chance like this." He pointed at the

  portal below them, leading to the interior. "The heart of the ship is

  that way."

  "Maybe--and for all you know, it's at the other end of a ten-kilometer

  maze. And if she's on the verge of breaking up, what then?" Lando

  demanded.

  "What else can we do?"

  "I have to see how bad the damage is. Give me your left glove."

  "Why?"

  "Because you won't need it where you're going, and I do need it where

  I'm going--out to the hull and forward to find out how much damage

  there is."

  "That's pointless. Either it can repair itself or it cannot," said

  Lobot. "We have to look for the control nexus."

  "You can do what you like. I need to know where things stand."

  "The ship knows," Lobot insisted.

  "When you figure out how to talk to her, let me know. Until then,

  we're both wasting time. The glove, please."

  Lobot hesitated, then unlocked the retaining ring and twisted the glove

  sharply clockwise. He sent it spinning across the chamber toward Lando

  with more force than necessary.

  "Thanks," Lando said, catching it cleanly with his bare hand. "I'll

  bring it back."

  "Is every gambler always sure that the next draw's a winner?" Lobot

  asked. "If you make it back, you can look for me in here." He jerked

  a bare thumb in the direction of the portal behind him.

  "I'll do that," Lando said, jetting toward a portal on the opposite

  side of the chamber. "If you want to help me out, you might try

  blazing your path with the paint stick. The ship might be too busy

  with other things just now to get around to wiping the marks."

  "I will consider it," Lobot said. As soon as Lando disappeared through

  the opening with a wave, Lobot tur
ned to Artoo-Detoo. "Go get Threepio

  and bring him here."

  Artoo released the equipment grid and dove toward the portal, chirping

  his relief and approval.

  "Don't spare the propellant," Lobot called after him.

  Alone, he removed his right glove and his helmet, clipping both to the

  equipment grid. Bending his neck forward, he reached up with his bare

  hands and lightly caressed the edges of the Hamarin interface band, his

  fingertips playing briefly over the attachment release at the back of

  his head.

  The interface had never come off in thirty-four years, not for

  maintenance upgrades, nor for sleep, nor for vanity. It did more than

  connect Lobot with a universe of interlinked data resources and control

  interfaces.

  The band had become a secondary link between the halves of his own

  brain, supplementing the corpus callosum so as to allow him to process

  the tremendous flood of data that pressed in on his awareness. His

  fingers knew it as part of the familiar and ordinary contours of his