Without another word the captain strode down the ramp, directly toward the spot where Cami stood waiting. As the two marine guards came to attention so did she, raising her arm in the formal salute she’d been told was due a senior officer, even when that senior officer served in a different military organization. Though Cami noted her eyebrows twitch slightly upward, the captain stopped at the foot of the ramp and returned the salute, dropping it after a second while letting her eyes silently ask the “who are you” question that protocol denied her. Cami dropped her own salute a moment later.
“Captain Chambers,” the young lieutenant began, her tone adding a question mark to the name.
“In the flesh,” Sydney replied, and allowed the slightest hint of a smile to touch her lips. “I gather you are my escort.”
Cami felt herself relax the slightest bit; while the august figure before her clearly had the mien and means to kill, she was apparently not about to bite off a young lieutenant’s head at that precise moment.
“Yes, ma’am,” Cami said, managing not to stutter as she covered the distance to the newcomer, continuing only when Sydney had accepted her offered hand and shaken it firmly. “Lieutenant Camilla Frye. I’m with Outpost Station Security, and aide to the station manager. My orders are to take you to Manager Rudolph’s office.”
Now Sydney did smile. “Convenient,” the captain said softly, “since that’s where I’m going.”
“Ma’am?”
Sydney added a chuckle to her smile, and Cami felt herself suddenly torn between joy and embarrassment. “Never mind, lieutenant,” the captain said lightly. “You’re clearly new at this.”
Cami felt her face flush even as her nervousness reasserted itself in a rush. “Yes, Ma’am,” she said, and attempted to hide her consternation by turning in the direction they needed to go. “I just got my commission last week.” She managed to take a few steps, the TSM officer hard at her side, before she found herself stopping to ask, “Is it really that obvious, Ma’am?”
Sydney chuckled again, though Cami was pretty sure it was in sympathy and not malicious. “I’m afraid so, lieutenant. Not that you’re doing anything I haven’t seen before. We do all have to start somewhere.”
A small sigh of relief escaped the young lieutenant’s lips. “Thank you, Ma’am. I am trying.”
“You are indeed,” Sydney noted. “However, while you may be trying, I’m afraid that you’ve stopped walking, and the sooner I get where we’re going, the better.”
Cami felt her face redden once again as she realized she’d come to a stop in the middle of the large docking area. Gulping down the apology that sprang to her lips she simply nodded, resuming course for the dock’s inner bulkhead and the elevator that would take them to the station administrative levels. They hadn’t gotten even half-way to their transport before Cami found herself unable to contain the question that had dogged her since being told the TSM captain was a woman.
“Have you been in the Terran Military long, Captain?”
The smile that touched Sydney’s lips was now more ironic than actually amused. “Contrary to popular opinion, lieutenant, you don’t get to be a captain in the first week.”
Cami’s face fell, and she knew that a look of horror had filled her eyes. “I — I’m sorry, Captain,” she stuttered, “I —”
“No, my fault, lieutenant ... Frye, wasn’t it?” At Cami’s bare nod, Sydney continued, “I’m do apologize, that comment was unkind. I guess it’s been too long since I was as young and enthusiastic as you are now.”
“Ah …” Cami began.
“I have been commissioned for over ten years at this point, Lieutenant Frye,” Sydney explained, her voice softening. “But in fairness, I have to add that I am actually new on the job as well.”
Cami was surprised at the note of humility. “New? How so, Ma’am?”
“This is my first assignment as captain,” Sydney clarified. “I was a lowly executive officer until about three months ago.”
Cami let the explanation stand as they reached the elevators and she became involved with summoning a car to the executive levels. The appropriate codes entered, she stood back and turned to regard her temporary charge.
“Run into pirates before?”
The TSM captain scowled. “Not often, I’m happy to say. From what I gather, though, you folks do seem to have the worst infestation in the Confederacy.”
Cami was taken aback by the description. “Infestation? That’s an odd way to put it.” The elevator doors swept open then and the two of them walked aboard; Cami took a moment to select the level she needed and enter more codes to activate the transport before finishing her thought.
“We do have a lot of pirates here. I guess ‘infestation’ is a pretty good way to describe it.”
“Has it affected you much, pirates getting so close to Outpost Station?”
“Well, it’s the reason I’m wearing this uniform,” the young lieutenant said with a grin. “The station has just hired a whole bunch of us to beef up security. I mean,” she added, realizing how bad what she’d just said had sounded, “I’ve wanted to do this for a long time now, Ma’am, but the old guys running security kept saying they didn’t want young girls like me getting in the way.”
Sydney snorted softly. “I’m glad to hear you kept at it, lieutenant,” she said as the car came to a stop and the doors opened with a loud bing! “You strike me as the kind of person who will be a definite asset to a military organization.”
Cami felt a stupid grin spread across her face. “Thank you, Ma’am,” she said, momentarily blinded by the compliment, then had to scramble as Sydney swept out of the elevator and headed along the plushly carpeted corridor in the wrong direction.
2
Manager Walter Rudolph did not consider himself as having a short temper. He worked hard at keeping his emotions on an even keel. It pained him when his co-workers would wince at something he said, some order he would give, because he really, truly, liked his fellow human being and sought to live in harmony as much as possible. That his position of authority rendered harmony sometimes beyond his grasp was a constant reminder of his own human frailty ... a reminder he had received all too often of late as pirates had swarmed with ever increasing boldness throughout his fiefdom.
Which was why he had shouted in irritation when the soft knock came at his office door.
“What!” It was a moment before he grimaced, then consciously reminded himself that whoever was there was in no way responsible for the pile of pirate-related paperwork that littered his desk. He silently counted to ten and drew a slow breath as he waited for the knocker to identify him- or herself.
When the door eventually opened just enough to admit the nervous visage of Cami Frye he felt an even deeper flare of guilt. Cami was the last person he would willingly bark at in anger. The sense of loss they shared had crafted a bond between them that he would sooner die than damage. Now he waved the lieutenant into the office.
“Sorry,” he barely muttered when she stepped in, pulling the door closed behind her. “I was caught up in this damn report. Is she here?”
Cami nodded. “Captain Sydney Chambers of the TSM Cahan Morrigan.” The lieutenant paused an awkward moment before adding, unbidden, “I like her.”
Walter found himself sighing at the naiveté of his young protégé. “You seem to like anyone connected with the military, Cami.”
The girl’s nervous look faded to a sad smile. “Not everyone,” she said softly.
“Ah,” Walter acknowledged, now smiling a bit himself. “Well. All right, then, I’ll give this captain the benefit of the doubt on your recommendation. Fair enough?”
Her eyes now twinkling with something between amusement and delight, Cami merely nodded.
“So, then, let’s not keep her waiting.”
The lieutenant nodded once more then turned to open the office door wide. “Manager Rudolph can see you now, Captain,” she said, then stepped aside to clear a pa
th for the visitor.
3
As she entered the domain of Outpost Station manager Walter Rudolph, Sydney briefly allowed her eyes to survey her surroundings. The office wasn’t huge — she recalled Admiral Alexander’s command office on the Shades of Glory as having been maybe a third larger — but it certainly dwarfed her own digs aboard Cahan Morrigan. Despite its size though, the room was every inch a workplace and not merely intended to instill awe in visitors: All available space was crammed with old-fashioned books, binders and even a few large paper somethings rolled into tubes. Paper was scattered across Rudolph’s desk as well, despite the presence of a modern-looking computer terminal on one end of work area. There was no window to break up the monotony of the walls — Sydney felt briefly smug as she recalled the portal to space that graced her own office — and the only picture on display was a portrait of the station itself, likely taken from a vessel on docking approach. She was mildly surprised to note not one other item of personalization anywhere.
She allowed her observations to take only the brief second or two needed to cross from the now-closed door to the desk where Rudolph stood, his hand offered in greeting.
“Captain Chambers, welcome to Outpost Station,” the manager said, his voice soft and filled with what Sydney took to be weariness. “The last of the wild frontiers, if you can believe the descriptions in the tourist brochures,” he added in a wry tone, waving Sydney to a chair across the desk from him once the amenity of a formal handshake had been accomplished. Tired he might be, but his handshake had been firm and unaffected; the captain tentatively decided to like the man.
“The latest frontier, perhaps,” she told him, adding a slight smile before settling into the offered chair. “I seriously doubt that it will be the last, Manager.”
Rudolph blew a derisive laugh through his nose, shaking his head slowly as he settled back into his own chair. “You can skip the ‘Manager’ bit, Captain,” he told Sydney, amusement light in his tone. “Call me Walter. First, last, or in-between, this is the frontier and we don’t stand on a whole lot of formality around here.”
Sydney nodded in silent acknowledgement.
“Let me add to that, Captain,” Rudolph went on, “that I’m glad I don’t have to worry about any frontiers after this one. We had a nice, quiet little piece of the universe going on until all this pirate crap started up. Now the whole of 16 Cygni is wild enough for anyone’s taste.”
“So I noticed,” Sydney said, adding a dry chuckle that both of them shared. “Riding into a shoot-out the moment we got here was not number one on my list of things to do.”
“It’s gotten to be an everyday occurrence for us.”
“Huh.” The captain shook her head. “My mission brief didn’t allude to anything so extensive as what I’ve already encountered, Mana — Walter,” Sydney amended, allowing the man his informality. “Anything and everything you can tell me about the current situation will be helpful.”
Rudolph nodded. “I’ve got an up-to-date report prepared. I’ll zip it to your comm codes as soon as we’re done here,” he said, “but in a nutshell, this is what’s going on.
“Until three years ago there really wasn’t that much of what you might call ‘pirate’ activity at all. There were thefts and hijackings here and there, of course, but just the normal stuff you get when a few million people try to interact in a growing society.”
“Armed hijackings?”
“Pop guns. More often some asteroid miners’d find their ships had been rifled while they were busy underground. Understand, I’m not including actual stick-ups or even bank heists — those are local matters, handled by local cops on each of our four worlds. I’m only talking about what happens in space.”
“It was a sudden change, then.”
“Very. The Cyg-A worlds started screaming twenty, ah —” he paused to consult the desktop computer screen for a moment — “twenty-seven months ago. Cyg-B followed suit not long after — though to be fair, it isn’t so bad on the B front. The crew over there doesn’t seem to be in it to get rich the way the bastards at Cyg-A are. O’Shaugnassey’s bunch mostly knock over freighters for their food and medicines. If I didn’t know better I’d be tempted to call them Robin Hood and his merry men.”
“Really,” Sydney said. Parchment could have spontaneously combusted from the dryness of her tone. “Robin Hood?”
Rudolph chuckled. “It does have a rob from the rich to give to the poor sort of feel to it, Captain,” he allowed. “Understand, there is a lot of poverty throughout 16 Cygni. A lot of nuveau industrialists and mine owners making money by treating their workers like crap. It tends to be worse over at B; I think that’s what got Patrick O’Shaugnassey into the pirate business in the first place. Story is that his brother’s family got wiped out in an industrial ‘accident’ and the company swept it under the rug. Anyway, he and his bunch never stray from Cyg-B space — though that doesn’t make the screams of the Cyg-B shippers any less loud.”
“I would imagine not. What about Cygni A, then,” Sydney asked, a frown etched on her features. “Their pirates are less Robin Hood-ish?”
“Hah!” Rudolph spat the word so loudly Sydney’s ears rang for a moment. “You have a penchant for understatement, Captain. Cyg-A’s been hit by something more like the Clanton gang, or maybe Attila the Hun. When their new boss rode into town three years ago is when things turned nasty, and it’s been getting worse and worse ever since.”
“This boss got a name?”
“He does,” the manager avowed, “and I suspect it’s one that’s in your systems somewhere. Guy’s ex-military — story is he got kicked out of the TSM a while back and then decided to take his piracy free-lance. A real murderous asshole. Name’s Hans Vattermann.”
Sydney felt her stomach roil at the name and it was a moment before she could find her voice. “Yeah, asshole would be a fitting description.”
“You know him?”
“In the worst possible way.” The captain took a moment to stomp down her emotions before continuing. “I was the complaining witness at his court martial.”
“Really.” Rudolph blinked a couple of times as he digested the information. “Not real good friends then, I imagine.”
Sydney couldn’t keep the emotion from her voice as she growled, “He would be rotting in jail — better yet, in hell — if the prosecutor hadn’t over-played his hand and been forced to settle for dishonorable discharge.”
“Pity you see it that way.” Rudolph shook his head and grunted once. “I’d so wanted to have the two of you over for supper.”
Sydney stared at Rudolph for a moment, then snorted in relief as the manager’s comment derailed her emotional train of thought. “Right.”
“Well,” Rudolph added, “that explains the little dust-up you folks had on your way into the system. Vattermann knows that you’re here.”
“What do you mean?”
“Even without checking the markings I can tell you that had to have been his ships that you ran off,” the manager said. “They’re the only ones brazen enough to attack in Cyg-C space. Now, I can’t say for sure that they weren’t just spreading into new territory on their own, but chances are they knew you were coming and were springing a welcoming party.” He shrugged. “There’s a leak that we haven’t been able to find yet.”
“Mmm.” Sydney hated the idea of Vattermann getting such early notice that she was there, but she had little doubt that the worm had followed her career with a keen eye since the court martial. Hans Vattermann had always been one to hold a grudge, and Sydney Chambers had presented him with the biggest grudge possible when her testimony had helped the court to find him guilty. She had little doubt that the ex-TSM officer would be quick to plot some sort of revenge that he could exact upon her in this new setting. As there was nothing she could do about it right then, she simply turned her thoughts to the broader picture.
“If that bunch at Cyg-B are as tame as you say, Walter,” she said, “Vat
termann’s probably thinking to pick off the shipping from Cyg-B that O’Shaugnassey passes up. I believe that was a Cyg-B based frieghter that he had hauled down when we arrived?”
“That’s pretty well a certainty, Captain. All Cygni transport is based out of B-3 — in fact, that world has corralled nearly all the industrial power the systems have developed so far. A-2 and B-2 are essentially just big planet-sized mines and A-3 is run by plantation gentry who figure that a shipping line is beneath their dignity.”
“Huh.” The captain let the facts weigh in her mind for a moment, then nodded. “So Vattermann is looking to expand his territory. Sounds like we’ve got a turf war going on.”
“That’s about it.” Rudolph considered a moment. “Won’t be a war for very long, though. More like a hostile take-over.”
“Why?”
“Vattermann brought all his military training and tactics with him,” the manager explained, “not to mention a good amount of military hardware — likely he purchased it surplus, but it’s still a damn sight better than anything else in this system. Certainly O’Shaugnassey’s stuff is nowhere close. Of course, your ship’s likely better than what Vattermann’s got.”
“Of course.”
“Not only that, he’s been working on it for three years now. He’s got his boys pretty disciplined. They’re hitting more often and more effectively. It’s started to drive the planet-side merchants near to revolt, and it’s leaving the shipping outfits close to ruin. Though with all that it’s the plantation owners who are screaming the loudest.”
Sydney frowned. “I don’t much care who’s screaming when everyone is suffering. And disciplined or not, they’re still just a gang of pirates.”
“Yeah, they are.” Rudolph’s smile was grim. “So glad that you noticed. That is, after all, why you are here. And now it’s your turn to explain to folks who haven’t turned a profit in six months why it is the Confederacy has answered our cry for help with only one bucket-of-rust ship and a captain newly promoted to the job.” He paused a moment, then added, “You had to know I would look you up.”
Sydney Chambers Page 4