Aces

by Alanson, Craig

  “Boss, I told you, we only have rough schematics of this ship, a lot of the time I have to guess how to get from one section to another. These cargo pods get modified all the time, those plans you bought are really old,” he added accusingly.

  Valjean didn’t like excuses, even if Dooley was right. The schematics of Atlas Challenger that Valjean had bought were public documents, there was nothing underhanded about it. To get a more recent plan of the ship would have required breaking into Universal Transport’s computers, or, more likely, bribing someone in the company to do it for him. There hadn’t been time before they left Earth, and Valjean had not wanted to risk drawing any attention to the little-noticed transport ship. It was a risk, he knew, and that fact that he was unhappy with his decision didn’t mean he couldn’t make Dooley pay for it anyway. Before Valjean could insult Dooley again, the pirate computer expert shouted triumphantly as the door cracked open and slid aside. Dooley took a quick glance into the next compartment, grinned, and said “Looks clear, boss.”

  Valjean shot a look of annoyance at Dooley’s back as the pirate company jogged the length of the compartment, where they again stopped for Dooley to work on opening yet another door. Without Dooley, they wouldn’t even have gotten the ship’s airlock open. He needed Dooley.

  For now.

  At the end of that compartment, the pirates halted again for Dooley to work his magic and open the door. “Hey, boss, I think we’re in luck.” Dooley called out while his notepad worked to override the door controls. “They’ve stopped moving, whoever has the box. It’s been in the same place now for ten minutes.”

  “How far?” Valjean asked.

  “Another three doors after this one, they’re on this deck.”

  “You’re sure you know which compartment they’re in?” Valjean’s question included a veiled threat of bad consequences for Dooley if he was wrong.

  Dooley hesitated. “I know which compartment the box is in. Somebody brought the box there. I can’t tell if people are still with the box, or how many people, boss.” He answered defensively. He didn’t add or if the thing we want is still in the box. With Valjean, Dooley had learned not to push his luck.

  “We’re going to hit that compartment from both ends, at the same time.” Valjean decided. “I don’t want them running out the other door as we come in.” He looked at the door controls. “Can you unlock the door, but not open it? And without people inside knowing?”

  Dooley considered that for a moment. “Unlock, sure, once it’s unlocked anybody can open the door by pressing this button.” He pointed to a large button on the door panel. “When it’s unlocked, though, the status light changes from red to green, on both sides of the door, I can't change that. If anyone’s watching, they’ll know I unlocked it.”

  That response didn’t please Valjean.

  “I know what you’re thinking, boss. I unlock one door, you wait there while I unlock the door at the other end, then we both go in at the same time? The problem is, to get to the other door, I’ll need to go through the compartment next to the one we want, and that means I’ll need to unlock both of those doors. That takes time.” Dooley’s voice took on a pleading tone. “I’m doing the best I can, boss, I don’t think anybody else could do this faster.” As he spoke, his notepad unlocked the door they were standing in front of. Perfect timing.

  “Wait!” Valjean hissed. The pirates took up positions on either side of the door; Dooley and Rocko to the left, Valjean and Taney to the right, weapons ready, in a maneuver they’d done at each door. At a silent signal from Valjean, Dooley pressed the button to open the door. As it slid open, Rocko walked stiffly forward, into the next compartment. He wasn’t met with a hail of weapons fire. The robot scanned the compartment with infrared sensors. “The compartment is clear.” It announced.

  The pirates moved forward warily, Rocko could only see line-of-sight, if a person were hiding behind a crate, the robot couldn’t see them. They made their way slowly down the long, gloomy and silent compartment, until the reached the large door at the opposite end, where Dooley silently went back to work on unlocking it.

  Valjean had used the time to think up a plan. “Here’s what we’re going to do. When we get to the compartment, we go through the compartment next to it, then Taney will wait there with me. You and your tinman go back and unlock the door on this end, and you send your robot in. Whoever has the box will come out the other door, where I’ll be waiting for them.”

  “That’s a good plan.” Dooley said, without needing to add any flattery. That, he thought, is why Valjean is the Boss.

  “Damn right.” Valjean said, a smirk of satisfaction on his face. He checked his watch. Way behind the original schedule, still plenty of time. The Navy wasn’t showing up any time soon. “Don’t just stand there, get that door open!”

  There was an odd metallic, crackling sound, loud, followed by a screech. The three humans crouched down, backs to the bulkhead or a crate, with the combat robot standing tall and sweeping the compartment with its sensors. “What the hell was that?” Dooley whispered.

  Valjean made a chopping motion with his free hand, for Dooley to keep his mouth shut. They waited.

  The sound repeated, and all four of them looked up at the speaker, high on the bulkhead. “-this thing on?” They heard. It sounded like a girl’s voice.

  There were scratching sounds, like something bumping into and dragging across a microphone, then more confusing voices. “-me that, Kaylee. I can fix-“ This voice sounded like a child, a young boy or girl.

  Dooley looked at Valjean and saw the same total astonishment on his boss’s face. Valjean angrily motioned for silence again.

  “SCREEEECH- OK, OK, I’ve got it. Here.” The boy’s voice boomed out of the speaker, echoing in the compartment.

  Someone cleared their throat over the intercom, then, “Attention, pirates! This is-“ there was whispering, then, “none of your business who this is. You listen to me. We’ve got the thing, the thing you want. We got it first! If you don’t do what I say, we’ll smash it, I swear I will!”

  Taney, not normally a talkative man, couldn’t control his reaction. “What the hell?” He blurted out.

  “Children?” Dooley added.

  “Shut up!” Valjean snarled, although he sounded as surprised as his two minions. A passenger manifest! He should have made the effort to get the ship’s passenger manifest! Valjean mentally kicked himself for being uncharacteristically sloppy. The beauty of his plan, to board the freighter between Oceania and Valhalla, was that Oceania was the last scheduled stop for passengers! Who the hell was still aboard the ship? He didn’t know. Valjean swallowed hard. For all he knew, the ship was bringing a company security team to Valhalla, former Colonial Marines. Unlikely, but possible, and if so, he was screwed. No way was his team going to tangle with Marines.

  The voice, the voice that Valjean had figured to belong to a young girl, continued. “You need to bring my, the crew people, you need to bring the people in the shuttle, the people that were in the shuttle, and the people in the-“ there was more unintelligible whispering in the background, “the command section, them also, you need to bring all those people here, safely. If you do that, we’ll give you this thing. I don’t care about the thing, you can have it.” There was a pause, at the end of the message, the speaker had appeared to run out of breath. “I’ll give you, two hours, two hours, to bring all those people on board this ship, safe, or I smash the thing. And don’t try to fool us! Use the intercom, and tell me yes, or no.”

  Kaylee pressed the microphone to her stomach to muffle it, her heart was racing so fast she could feel it pounding in her ears. “Is it off?” She whispered.

  Manny showed her the switch, in the Off position. “Yes. That was good, Kaylee.”

  Kaylee set the microphone down on top of a crate. “I hope so.” To herself, she’d sounded like an idiot. But she’d gotten her message across. She would smash the thing, whatever it was.

  �
�You think they’ll call us back?” Manny asked.

  Kaylee slumped down until she was sitting on the floor, she pulled her knees up to her chest. Right then, she felt a lot closer to being a scared little girl than a confident young woman. “I don’t know. Manny.”

  Valjean held up his hand for silence, his mind racing. Was it a trap? If there were only a few, one or two, adults aboard, they would need some sort of advantage, if they intended to capture of kill his pirate crew. Making Valjean think he was dealing only with a pair of frightened children would be an effective lure. There might not even be any children, it could be an adult speaking through a filter, to make the voice sound like a young girl. If it was a trap, he had to admire whoever was planning it. It was something he would do, were he in that situation.

  It didn’t sound like that. If adults were planning a trap, they would have given the girl a better script to read. She had sounded genuinely like a scared adolescent, and genuinely fighting with the boy. The boy was younger? A brother, perhaps? It sounded like a squabble between siblings. Hard to fake something like that. Children. It was children. What they were doing aboard, and how they’d gotten the item he wanted, he couldn’t imagine, yet, they were here, and probably had the item. Were they children of the crew? Captain Hans Schroeder had a daughter, but she was 25 years old. The rest of the crew he didn’t know about. The voice had insisted on rescuing people from both the command section, and the surface. That made Valjean think her parents were ship’s crew, one in the command section, the other parent had been in the shuttle. But crew records hadn't listed any married couples.

  Dooley broke the silence. “Two hours is not enough time, boss.” It would probably take more than two hours just to rendezvous with the command section, assuming it hadn’t already fallen out of orbit during that time.

  “I know that, you idiot!” Valjean snapped. “We’re not rescuing anyone, damn it. We stick to the plan. We know where the box is, and now we know at least two people have it.” he stood up, and holstered his weapon. “Dooley, get that door open, and keep going, while I have a little chat with our new friends.”

  Sister and brother looked up at the speaker. “This is the leader of the, uh, the pirates, as you call us. Who am I speaking to, please?”

  Kaylee saw Manny vigorously shaking his head up and down in a ‘No’ gesture. She didn’t need her little brother’s advice on this subject. She keyed the mic on. “None of your business. We are the people who have the thing you want. That’s all you need to know.”

  A soft laugh came over the speaker. “Fair enough. You seem to have the advantage. Very well, I agree to your terms. All I want is the item I came here to get, I never intended for anyone to get hurt.”

  Kaylee toggled the mic on again, and opened her mouth to shout out what a liar the pirate was. She stared at the microphone, then clicked it off. While shouting would make her feel better, it wouldn’t bring her parents back.

  The voice from the speaker continued. It was a man’s voice, smooth and oily. Kaylee thought she wouldn’t want to meet the man, under any circumstance. Even at her young age, she knew the type. “There is one problem, however. Two hours is not enough time, we will need eight to ten hours. Let me explain, please, so you will know I am not stalling for time. In order to bring those people in the command section here, it will take two trips in my shuttle, my shuttle only has four seats. As I’m sure you know, my ship is damaged, so I can only use my shuttle. Two round trips will take four hours, at minimum. I will then need to go back to my ship, and refuel the shuttle, before dropping down to the surface. Depending where we are in orbit at the time, relative to the position of the people on the surface, it could take another three to five hours to bring your people off the surface. So, I propose a good faith gesture. I will send my pilot to bring three people back from the command section, no more than three hours from now. When they arrive, I will hold them here with me, and let you talk to them. Your part of the bargain is that you will not damage the item, in the meantime, agreed?”

  Kaylee looked to Manny. He gave her an exaggerated shrug. “He’s probably telling the truth, Kaylee. It does take a long time to fly around in orbit, and down to the surface and back.”

  She hesitated before toggling open the mic. Her advice on orbital mechanics was coming from a twelve year old boy. “Ok. Agreed.” She blurted out, then snapped the mic off.

  Dooley gave Valjean a thumb’s up sign, and the door began to slide open. Valjean turned the microphone off. It was attached to the wall panel with a cord. “Can you make this wireless, so I can move while I talk?”

  Dooley shook his head. “Sorry, boss,” he said as he sent his robot into the compartment ahead of him, in case there were people, unfriendly people, waiting for him. “That’s part of the ship’s emergency system, it’s designed to work when the regular wireless systems are down.”

  To Dooley’s surprise, Valjean didn’t blame him for it. “Then, you go ahead, get those doors open, take Taney and your robot with you. I’ll keep them talking.” Valjean sat on top of a crate, to get comfortable, as his crew hustled down the compartment. He toggled the microphone on. “I’m glad we can agree. We both have damaged ships, and it is dangerous enough out here in the coldness of space without us being in conflict. Let’s see what else we can agree on, shall we? Avoid miscommunication, any potentially dangerous mistakes?”

  Brother and sister exchanged a knowing look. “He’s trying to keep us talking.” Kaylee said in disgust. She'd seen that in a video somewhere.

  “Yeah.” A thought just occurred to Manny. “Uh oh. Kaylee, they might be able to track where we’re talking from.”

  “What?”

  “I don’t know they can do that, I’m just saying, you know, maybe they can? Somehow?”

  “I wish you said that before.” Kaylee said, and added an eye roll.

  “You didn’t even know how to use the intercom!” Manny shot back. “You’re so stupid!”

  “Shut up!”

  “You shut-“ Manny stopped, mouth open in mid-insult, when he saw tears well up in his sister’s eyes. “I’m sorry, Kaylee. I didn’t mean it.”

  “I want Mom and Dad back.” Kaylee said through a sniffle, wiping her eyes with the back of her sleeve.

  “Me, too.” Manny felt his eyes start to water. He snatched the microphone out of his sister’s hand, toggled it open, and spoke into it, trying to make his voice as deep as he could. “When you get the crew off the command section, call us. Until then, shut your pie hole!” He slammed the microphone back in its slot in the wall.

  Kaylee was so startled that she covered her mouth with her hand, and giggled. "Shut your pie hole?" She giggled. Manny snickered, and soon the two were laughing through their tears, laughing together.

  Valjean wasn’t laughing. He looked at the speaker in surprise. “Shut my pie hole?” He mouthed silently. That comment hadn’t come from a girl, perhaps a teenage boy? So, there were three children? He wasn’t insulted, he’d been called far worse, and by people he grudgingly respected. Insults from children? Meaningless. He sighed, and slid down off the crate. Valjean actually didn’t enjoy killing. It wasn’t that he was morally opposed to it, killing was just so messy and complicated. And unnecessary, if a plan was properly thought out. The freighter’s shuttle crew, of course, he had tried to kill. That was a consequence of his having very little time to develop a plan and implement it. Given more time, he could have snatched the item without anyone getting hurt, without anyone even noticing. It wasn’t his fault, that the freighter crew, and passengers, had not cooperated with his plan. If they had, he would already be in hyperspace, and far away from here, by now. Atlas Challenger would, of course, be blown to dust by the explosives Valjean planned to set off near the ship’s fusion reactor, once he had the item he wanted. The explosives were in the pack Taney carried slung over his back. Witnesses he didn’t particularly care about, they knew nothing useful, but his contract was specific: no one could know which item h
e had stolen. Which meant, according to Valjean’s plan, that he needed to destroy all the cargo, leaving no trace of what was missing. It would all be missing.

  "Boss," Taney said as he once again checked the charge on his rifle, "I know we're gonna blow this whole ship, but if we get the chance, I want to kill those brats myself."

  "You got it, Taney. Let's move."

  “That was funny, Manny.”

  “Uh-huh. What do we do now?” Manny asked.

  Kaylee bit her lower lip. She had no idea what to do next, she hadn’t thought the plan through that far. If the pirates failed to bring her parents aboard, what then? And if the pirates did bring their parents aboard, how could she assure the pirates didn’t kill everyone, after she gave them the thing they wanted? She looked at her backpack, leaning against the crate at her feet. “Let’s see what this thing is.” Whatever it was, she felt like smashing it right now.

  “Wait,” Manny said, as his sister couched down and unzipped her backpack, “not here.” He looked nervously around the vast compartment, back and forth between the large doors at either end. Had the pirates been able to figure out the location where Kaylee had used the intercom? He didn’t know if that was possible, but then, he was a kid. The possibility that he had given away their location by turning on the intercom for his sister scared him. “Let’s go over near one of the access hatches, in case we have to get out of here fast.”

  “Good thinking.” Kaylee picked up her pack, and led the way toward the closest access hatch. It was a close squeeze in between some of the crates, it was darker, and the area was dusty. She had a sneezing fit as they sat down. “Get out your light.” She told Manny, as she pulled the box out of her pack.

  Manny turned the light on and shone it on the box.