Edge of Redemption (A Star Too Far Book 3)

by Casey Calouette

  “So tell me, Captain, what do you know of Winterthur?” Emilie asked.

  Captain Grace looked up from his food and finished chewing. “Precious little, what my charts tell me and little more. Well established industry, good sized colony, on the edge to nowhere. We don’t plan on stopping.”

  “So it is true, we’ll have no garrison?”

  Captain Grace wiped his mouth and leaned his elbows onto the table. “That will pass to the colony to administer.”

  Emilie felt her pulse rising. She’d have possession of the only ship with a gun. That, all by itself, would be priceless. A nice cushy contract. Her eyes caught Mustafa’s, who had already picked up on it.

  “We’ll be in system as long as it takes for this transport to get loaded, the Grouper to offload, and for us to inspect some assets,” Captain Grace said, plucking a garlic clove from inside an ivory white dinner roll.

  “Grouper?” Mustafa asked, a mouthful of orange noodles slapping on his chin.

  Captain Grace elbowed the young officer sitting next to him.

  “The uh, freighter with us, the old one, sir,” Midshipman Bryce said.

  “They are not dining with us?” Mustafa asked.

  “The airlock design on the freighter will not couple to this modern of a ship,” Midshipman Bryce said.

  “Unfortunate, I’d like to see who flies a museum.”

  Captain Grace swallowed and took a swig of blood red wine. “This is Midshipman Bryce. In case you can’t tell from the complexion, he was blessed to be born on Haven.”

  Emilie could see the look in the Midshipman. “How is Haven these days, Mr. Bryce?”

  Bryce smiled. “Nice, ma’am.”

  Captain Grace nodded to the Midshipman.

  Emilie could see that the pilots were already itching to be done. They hardly touched dinner, Emilie assumed they preferred condensed meals fed while linked to the ship.

  “Your corvette, uh, Mr. Mustafa, is there a last name?” Captain Grace asked.

  “There is, but Mustafa works.”

  Captain Grace nodded with a raised eyebrow and looked to Emilie. “You own the corvette then Ms. Rose?”

  “Chartered,” Emilie responded.

  “Mercenaries?” Captain Grace asked as he shoveled another load of food into his mouth. The Marines came behind him and landed another plate of steaming garlicky goodness before him.

  In the silence, Mustafa leveled a fork at the Captain and waved it before him. “You. You take away that little silver platter on your shoulder and you’re the same.”

  Emilie snapped her eyes to Mustafa and frowned at the Turk. Good god, she thought, what the fuck is he doing?

  Captain Grace swallowed hard and set his fork down. “Mustafa, if that is your name, I’ve had dealings with mercenaries, on a corvette similar to yours. Took it, seized it, and fled with it.” The words came out thick like a bitter syrup. “As long as the good lady sees fit to keep your leash tight, you’ll be fine. But one slip and I’ll see you hang.”

  Mustafa stood and slammed his fork onto the table. He opened his mouth and stopped himself. His upper lip flapped as he took heavy breaths.

  Grgur and Igor each crossed their arms and took stepped forward.

  “Mustafa!” Emilie yelled. “Take a walk.” The meal was an opportunity to pump the Captain for information, learn a bit—instead, she was running damage control.

  The Turk turned and walked out of the room in silence. Captain Grace’s eyes followed him until he was gone. He shrugged it off and jammed another hunk of rich red pseudo-protein garlic sausage into his mouth. “You have my apologies, Ms. Rose, but I’ve seen the worst mercenaries can do.”

  “Of course, Captain, now please do tell me about your chefs.”

  She felt lucky to have struck on something Captain Grace enjoyed. The remainder of the meal was spent discussing the finer points of the dinner. Both of the Marines looked quite pleased by the finish of the evening. She regretted not being able to talk more shop with the Captain. He carefully deflected any critical question back to the topic of food.

  The evening ended. Her last glimpse of Captain Grace was him stuffing garlic rolls into his pockets. She did a double take and shook her head as she walked away.

  Typical Navy, she thought. Duty, country, a ship, and not much else. As predictable as economic units of citizens. She didn’t mean to think ill of him, but she knew that he was, to someone, just a pawn on a board. Her plan would go much smoother without a Naval asset in place. The sooner he was out and gone, the quicker she could secure a contract for patrol.

  She found Mustafa sulking before the airlock. He glanced up and turned his head aside. They weren’t due to be picked up for another hour. The edge of the personnel carrier was cool with a hint of garlic still in the air.

  “What was that? What the fuck was that?” Emilie asked. She leaned against the side wall and shook her head at Mustafa.

  “We won’t have to deal with him anymore,” Mustafa said in a low voice.

  “He hit a fucking nerve, didn’t he?” She watched Mustafa divert his gaze and shrug lightly. The Captain did hit a nerve she thought. “What did you go to prison for?”

  Mustafa looked up from the floor and shook his head slowly. “That’s off limits.”

  “Bullshit, it could jeopardize my contract. Which means it’ll jeopardize your pay.” She stabbed a finger at him. “What did you do?”

  Mustafa ran a finger over his bare upper lip and licked his teeth. “We ran a job screening a corporate jump, early assets out of unclaimed space.”

  “For fuck’s sake,” Emilie groaned. “Who did you steal from?”

  “Dythco. But we were just a screen, we never touched the shit,” Mustafa said.

  “So someone else ran, had a load of minerals, and you were left without any pay and a nice little prison sentence.”

  Mustafa nodded slowly. “That’s about it.”

  Emilie shook her head and pictured the operation. One ship would go in and seize the manufacturing operation while the other ran interference in case the owners popped in. Except in this case, when the owners showed up, Mustafa’s partner ran. “What happened to the other guy?”

  Mustafa snorted. “They made it out. Laundered the minerals.”

  “Just like that? Done?”

  He nodded and shrugged. “Hard to argue with a battlecruiser.”

  “How long?”

  Mustafa looked at the floor and muttered, “two years.”

  “So why the enmity? You got caught, did your time, that’s it.”

  Mustafa stared and stepped closer. “It was my ship. They took everything! All they left me with was a hulk. Bare and stripped. I get out and she’s tethered on Luna, baking in the sun. My ship! Mine!” He shook with anger. “So you take that Captain, strip off his rank, and he’s just a merc with someone else’s ship. At least I own mine.”

  Emilie didn’t like it. She didn’t like the fact that Mustafa had such a grudge. She didn’t understand, but she knew that owning a starship was like owning a house. It was personal, linked right to the soul. But more than a home, a world, a place where everything insured survival. She could see how someone could get attached to it.

  “Just play it cool. We’ll be clear of them soon enough.”

  “Then what?”

  “Then we get a nice contract for system security and you’ll be the one busting ore thieves.”

  Mustafa waited in silence.

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  ––––––––

  The small convoy plied the routes and passed the discarded jetsam like litter on the side of a highway. At every blink they saw empty canisters, wrecked transports, discarded containers, and mining debris. The shattered remnants of asteroids drifted and hung like clouds of sand.

  After leaving Earth and passing through the icy bands that was the Oort cloud, they blinked through a region of interstellar deadness. The places where only radio waves sung. Starship traffic was light and
the majority headed back to Earth.

  Word of the attack reached the outer colonies and now they were responding. At every encounter, the convoy would open the datastream and transmit their previously loaded newsfeeds. One of the last data dumps they received was packed with news for the colonies. Everything from mineral prices to the latest gossip from the vids. At every encounter they sent it all.

  “How’s the war? Did we slam ‘em?” one Chilean freighter asked, though they seemed more interested in the latest World Cup.

  The information William received was even more interesting, at least for the Navy. Encrypted inside of the civilian datastream were bits of Naval intelligence. Sa’Ami raiders were assaulting ships.

  The Sa’ami had set remote mining operations with additive manufacturing cells. These cells produced strider drones specifically designed to hit ships coming into systems. The gangly limbs would slash into a ship and disable or destroy. Since most ships heading back for Earth contained minerals it was a self-sustaining operation for the striders.

  William studied each report and knew it was only a matter of time until he too ran into it.

  The farther away from Earth they went, the more the debris from these attacks was seen. Data repeaters on the edge of systems would blare warnings. At each blink the convoy would go to full battle stations and William would blink his ship through first. But after every blink all they saw was debris.

  *

  “Convoy standby for blink. Shift through fifteen minutes after we do, unless engaged,” William ordered. He released the keybind and nodded to Huron.

  The ship’s Engineer was hunched over the console. Beside him sat Lieutenant Shay, leaning back as if in a hammock, relaxed and calm. The displays showed everything ready, everything loaded. The passages echoed as the airlocks sealed throughout the ship.

  “We’re green for blink,” Huron said.

  “Ms. Shay, you call it.” William said as he engaged the weapons program. Lines of contingencies rolled and flowed before him. He caught bits and pieces of it, mass driver executions, if-then statements, missile protocols. It was a dance and he liked to watch it play out.

  “Here we go,” Lieutenant Shay said softly. She slapped the console.

  The displays blinked to white and the starscape shifted. Sensor arrays waited, each sucking in every bit of information they could. In the span of a few milliseconds every instrument absorbed every bit of local space. The starscape was calculated, observed, and the position verified.

  Then the mass drivers opened fire.

  William could almost sense it before they blinked. His fingers danced on the console. The commands between the bridge crew were rapid. The data was still coming in and already the mass drivers had halted and quieted. The initial wave of violence stopped.

  The displays showed nothing more in the immediate vicinity. The blink had brought them a step closer to a barren system with nothing but automated mining systems. Clouds of debris twinkled in the dim starlight.

  “Clear, Captain,” Lieutenant Shay said. “Here’s the vid.”

  One of the screens blanked out followed by a shift of starscape. Red icons were overlaid onto shadows scattered around the ship. A group of four Sa’Ami striders had been barely a kilometer away. Acceleration icons flared followed by an immediate juking and dancing. Mass drivers opened up a moment later and the targets were vaporized.

  “That was quick,” Huron said, as the playback cycled once more.

  “Go live, Ms. Shay, make sure nothing else is nearby. We’ll cover an AU or so before they come in.” William looked up to the system chart.

  The ship released a trio of energy bursts that scattered in all directions. The energy ranged through various spectra and cast out at the speed of light. It plunged through the emptiness around them and returned scattered signatures of dust, micrometeorites, and the accumulated debris of space travel.

  “Clear,” Lieutenant Shay said.

  “Can they blink?” Huron asked.

  William had been afraid that they could. He pictured the striders attacking away from him and began to scratch the palm of his augmetic hand nervously.

  “Blink!” Huron called out. The display lit up with both the Core personnel carrier followed by the bulk of the Grouper a second later.

  Comms chatter tore through the silence from both ships. “They’re on us!” a voice howled from the Grouper.

  “There!” Lieutenant Shay called out and zoomed in on the outside of the Grouper. A pair of large striders leaped along the top of the shipping containers. Each was humanoid and massive with an elongated bulb hanging off the back.

  “Grouper, seal hatches,” William called as he keyed up the weapons program and fired.

  A pair of mass drivers stitched rounds into the Grouper. The first strider tumbled away with the bulbous back slapping against it. Sparks and delicate flame erupted.

  The second strider leaped and powered down at an odd angle. It had fired a grav drive and pushed itself behind the mass of the freighter.

  “Roll Grouper! Roll!” William yelled.

  “You’re shooting at us!”

  “Shut up and roll!” William yelled again.

  “Blink!” Huron yelled.

  The form of the Gallipoli appeared a kilometer on the opposite side of the grouper.

  “Gallipoli is priming weapons,” Lieutenant Shay said. “We’re in line.”

  William calculated the ordinance; he could take a few rounds. “Gallipoli! Fire mass drivers on the strider assaulting the Grouper!” He leaned forward and watched. Every beat of his heart was like a hammer in his ears.

  The Gallipoli wore meager armaments, barely enough to show her as a truly armed corvette. But even with a handful of mass drivers, it would be enough.

  The green winks came and William’s heartbeat dropped just a touch. The taste of metal was in the back of his mouth.

  Mass driver rounds slammed into the Grouper in flashes of green and white. The Gallipoli ceased fire and all was silent.

  “Grouper report,” William called over the comms.

  “Our cargo! Have you any idea what those containers are worth? They’re irreplaceable!” a voice wailed over the comms.

  William keyed the mute for the main speaker. “If they have anything important to say, let me know, Ms. Shay.” He cleared his throat and didn’t relish hailing the Gallipoli. He’d made a point of criticizing the Captain of the ship when he discovered he was a mercenary. All he could picture was the mercs who had enslaved the planet Redmond and were going to turn it over to the Hun. Maybe he’d been too harsh, he thought. “Gallipoli, well done. Thank you for the assistance.”

  “We’ll send you the bill,” Mustafa called back in a heavy voice.

  William smiled and nodded. He’d earned that one. “Huron, see if the Grouper needs anything, otherwise we continue on.” He kicked back and reviewed the footage of the attack. These weren’t weapons of war, they were designed to inhibit shipping but not destroy it. All signals pointed to a weapon designed to stop the flow of shipping.

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  Natyasha felt the anger rise. She turned and snapped her head to the Ambassador. “Don’t lecture me about necessities, Myint.” She turned away and looked up to the raw stone of the wall behind her. It was one of the few places around that didn’t weep corrosion. Mineral poor, and safe from prying eyes.

  “When the time comes, we will offer support,” Ambassador Myint said in a low voice.

  “Why not explain it? Put it to the council? Surely they’ll see the logic?” Garth said. He swirled a wide-mouthed glass before him and stared into the oily brown liquor.

  Natyasha pictured the stoic faces of those small minded council members. “Half of them are with, or imported here, by Core. The others are old school colonists, they won’t see the necessities.”

  If only it was so easy, she thought. None of them would see that they had to nurture one suitor while exploring all the other options. She looked up to the
Ambassador. Slimy bastard, she thought, but weren’t they all?

  “What of Core?” Ambassador Myint asked as he paced.

  “What of them? They’re the root of the problem here. No tariffs from the Harmony Worlds right?”

  “No unequal tariffs.”

  Natyasha glared back at the Ambassador. Slimy, she could almost feel it. She needed leverage. The Ambassador would bring troops, foreign troops, and if she didn’t have a counter, they’d be in control. “How tight is the Harmony front?”

  Myint raised an eyebrow and shrugged slightly. “I’m an Ambassador, not an Admiral.”

  “But surely you must know if the Harmony Worlds will spare starships for us?” Natyasha asked. “How long can we remain free of Core and the UC?”

  “How long do we have to? Really?” Garth asked as he leaned forward in his chair. “Once the borders have shifted it’ll be difficult for them to come back in. Cast off that tariff and it’ll be impossible to bring back in.”

  Natyasha didn’t buy it. “Core has a claim here, a lot of infrastructure, they won’t just let us walk with it.”

  She hated to admit how much of the planet was Core owned. The layer of corporate nanites was thick on damn near everything.

  How to get that leverage? She pictured a Hun garrison, her own militia could counter that well enough. Even if they were outgunned, the colonists would have a numerical advantage. She glanced at Myint and watched him expound the details of Burmese origins. It was difficult to keep the disgust off her face. The Ambassador was nearly slavering over the chance to seize the colony, her colony.

  Bark spoke and startled Natyasha. “Ma’am, a moment?”

  Natyasha nodded and the pair walked out of the room and down a slender hallway with a peaked ceiling.

  “We’ve got a convoy coming in, ma’am,” Bark said.

  Natyasha looked down at the stout woman. A convoy, she thought. “Who?”

  “UC Navy, Core transport, a civilian corvette and an ancient freighter.” Bark shifted where she stood and flexed her augmetic arms. The bared alloy frame hummed and sang lightly.