I pondered, and suddenly it came to me. I did know of someone whose name started with a Q, and I did have something that person wanted. The name was QYV, pronounced Kife, and the thing was the key that my fiancée Helse had carried. I now wore it on the chain with my dog tags, bound lengthwise so that it wasn't obvious. It was always with me: my sole physical memento of my lost love.
This had to be QYV, who had finally tracked down his lost key to me. That could not have been any easy job, for most of the people his courier Helse had encountered were dead. Certainly the pirates who had been responsible for her demise were dead; I had seen to that. Technically I had killed her—but only technically. She had died in our defensive action against attacking pirates. The memory still hurt; it would always hurt. But four years is a long time to a teenage youth, and I was now able to face the truth without more than an internal flinch.
I had no knowledge what lock that key might fit; I valued it solely because it had been Helse's. I was not about to give it up. If QYV wanted it, he would have to come and get it.
My feelings about QYV were balanced. I was sure he was a pirate, an illegal operator, probably a smuggler. I knew that his name was respected and feared throughout the pirate realm; no one dared cross QYV. I had sworn to extirpate all piracy, but I wasn't sure that oath included QYV because QYV had made it possible for Helse to travel to Jupiter as his courier for the key. That key had enabled me to meet and love her. It was true that I had also lost her, but QYV had not been responsible for that, and certainly had not approved it. QYV protected his couriers. He might be a criminal, but he had done no direct harm to me.
Now he was searching for his lost key and probably also for revenge against those who had balked his courier. I had the key, but I also craved revenge. To that extent, our purposes aligned. However, I knew the enemy of my enemy was not necessarily my friend, and I wanted no contact with QYV. Certainly I would not give up the key.
So my answer to this cryptic message was no problem: I ignored it. But I knew that it had to be merely a preliminary signal; I would be hearing more from QYV.
I did. I received an anonymous vid-call. The screen showed only the letter Q. "Do you?" a nondescript voice asked.
"Show me your power," I replied, and hung up.
A week later new orders came through for me. I was to report for space duty to the destroyer Hammerhead. Its mission was to capture an errant pirate ship, and it turned out that the ship was the Hidden Flower. The very ship I wanted.
In my mail, the last one before I transferred to the ship, I received a sealed note. Inside was a square of paper bearing the single letter Q.
QYV had shown me his power, indeed! How had he known of the thing I most wanted: the chance to rescue my sister Spirit? But still there was no deal, no demand for the key. This was only a demonstration, not the negotiation. But it was doubly impressive, for it also showed the potency of QYV's graft. I no longer considered Lieutenant Repro to be paranoid about pirate influence in the Navy; that influence was real.
I bid farewell to Juana; our two-year tenure as roommates was over. "There is another sergeant I can room with," she said bravely through her tears, so I wouldn't worry.
"Make him happy, Juana," I said. "We shall meet again."
"Yes, we shall," she agreed determinedly. There was theoretically no love between us, but I was aware that she had not entirely kept faith, and I myself was moved more than casually by the sudden separation. Juana was a good woman, and her supportive presence had done much to alleviate my own heartbreak over Helse. We had always known separation would come; enlisted personnel could not marry. Well, they could come close; E4's could be reassigned as units, and E5's could even have a child, using a counteragent to block the universal contraceptive. But that child would be a ward of the Navy and could be taken away at the convenience of the Navy. True marriage and family status, Navy-style, was reserved for officers. Juana could not join me on this hazardous mission, nor would I have wanted her to. Her skills were wrong, and so was her temperament; she was no adventurer. So it was circumstance rather than desire or regulations that separated us. Perhaps this was just as well; it would have been too easy to stay with her for life. Certainly she could attract another roommate; she could attract a hundred! She had been beautiful at age sixteen; at nineteen she was ravishing.
"And if you want to, when you use the ship's Tail," she murmured, "you may pretend it's me." Then she kissed me one final time, and I realized it was no joke. It would be uncomfortable sex on the ship after two years of Juana. Not because she was anything really special in this particular way, but because I did indeed care for her.
This mission had been arranged by QYV, I knew. But there had to be an official pretext. There had been several deaths from contaminated drugs, and the Hidden Flower had been implicated. It was probably a put-up job, but pirate ships had little recourse to legalities. It was to be a surgical strike, without fanfare; we were to capture this vessel undamaged and turn its personnel over to the proper Navy authorities. Except for one civilian hostage aboard it...
I met the captain of the Hammerhead and his crew; they would pilot my crew to the rendezvous with the target vessel. I do not name these people here because they are peripheral to my narration.
We boarded and accelerated toward the Hidden Flower.
Of course, this was not a straight line; there are few straight lines when traveling in space, contrary to popular illusion. It was a closing spiral as we moved from our position in the skew-ecliptic of the outer moons of Jupiter to the true ecliptic of the inner moons. Acceleration provided our pseudo-gravity, and it was not confined to single gee. We moved rapidly in toward the colossus planet, though, of course, we would never arrive there. As we neared the detection range of our prey, we set our snare.
It would of course have been virtually impossible to close on the pirate ship unobserved. All pirates were alert for Navy vessels and quickly took evasive action. We had more drive power and could have run the Hidden Flower down and holed her with a single shot, but destruction was not our purpose. We also could have haled her and demanded surrender, but she would have fled or fought or destroyed all her records and contraband before yielding to us. Those records were vital, theoretically. So we used a subterfuge.
We became a virtual derelict. We turned off our drive and drifted in orbit in the approximate path of the pirate. The Hidden Flower, like most pirates, was a scavenger; she took anything she could use from any ship she could disable. The EMPTY HAND trade was only part of her activity, not enough by itself to sustain her. She would not pass up a choice morsel like this.
We were a very special derelict. We had a double hull. The outer one was of the standard thickness and strength; the inner one was much stronger and was largely self-sealing.
We drifted for several days, Earth time. Little of significance has occurred on Earth in five centuries, but its time retains its hold on us, as do its several languages and cultures. Man never truly left Earth; he merely expanded Earth into the Solar System. At any rate, this delay was necessary to abate any suspicion on the part of the target ship.
In that time, we occupied ourselves in whatever manner we selected. Some played dominoes, either the spot-matching type or the physical collapsing-structures type. Some took on the lone girl representing the EM Tail in shifts, trying vainly to wear her out; she must have been nympho. Some viewed feelies. There was, ironically, one chip of the EMPTY HAND brand, the best of the lot; one of my men mentioned his regret at having to take out this particular ship. Some practiced their various combat proficiencies: barehand, sword, club, garrote, and so on. We were all proficient in several martial arts, but true expertise took many years to develop, so competitive practice was always welcome. Because of my talent and intensive training, I was one of the better practitioners, but my ability suffered when matched against the proficiency of strangers whose natures I did not yet know. So mostly I rested and exercised and reviewed raiding strategy in my
mind. And got to know my men.
We knew the layout of the Hidden Flower; it was on record, and we had studied it to the point of memorization. We could now move competently within it blindfolded. Indeed, we would do something very like that, for all power in the ship would be stifled. This was necessary to incapacitate the self-destruct system. The pirates thought they were safe from boarding, because of that system, but our technology was ahead of theirs. So it meant a hand-to-hand struggle. We could not use a pacifier for the same reason they would not be able to blow up their own ship: All electric or electronic equipment would become inoperative while the suppressor field was in place.
"Alert," the captain murmured on the intercom. "Prepare for mission."
It was time. The Hidden Flower had sighted us and was closing. I got into my space suit and rendezvoused with my squad. Ten good men, all suited and ready. We did not use names on this mission; I was One, my corporal was Two, and the rest were Three through Eleven. "Remember," I said unnecessarily. "We want them alive—and you alive, too." We knew how to knock out a man bare-handed but also knew that some of those pirates had had similar training, and they would be desperate. So it was no sure thing.
The Hammerhead's crew were also suited. They were Navy men, somewhat disdainful of the soldiers of the enlisted ranks, but they knew what this mission entailed. If this mission malfunctioned, and the pirate ship self-destructed, the Navy personnel would be lost, too. They were dependent on our raider squad to do the job properly. They would have to sit and wait, for this part of it.
"Stand by for holing," the captain's voice came. We had the double hull, but still it was not comfortable waiting to be fired on and holed. If the pirates had a lucky shot, that penetrated the inner hull, too, we would have a rougher time of it than we liked. That was why everyone aboard the Hammerhead was now suited.
The missile came. The ship rocked as a shell detonated against the hull and rocked again as another struck. The third one holed it, and the air blew out; then the bombardment ceased. This was the manner of operation of this pirate: Hole the ship to make quite sure it was dead, then board and clean it out. It was an efficient operation, virtually risk-free, but it forfeited the normal pirate delights of rape, slave-taking, and bloody hand slaughter. Most pirates seemed to crave literal blood, using swords to hack at helpless victims. How well I remembered seeing my father die that way!
I controlled my black rage. These pirates were just as murderous, and I had no sympathy for them, but my mission was to recover my sister alive, and I needed to be coldly objective, to be sure that nothing went wrong. Navy justice would take care of the others.
Now there was silence among us, for we were theoretically dead. The inner hull remained tight, but I led my squad quietly out the lock and to the outer hull. In the darkness we could not see the hole but did not need to; we waited by the main airlock. It was now useless as a pressure lock, but the pirate ship would use it for attachment, to keep the ships conveniently together for the plundering. Once they used the lock, we would strike.
I heard the clang of contact and felt the shudder of the ship. We were in vacuum, but sound is transmitted through substance, so as long as we remained in contact with the hull, our ears could guide us. They guided the Navy captain, too; when that airlock opened, he would turn on the suppressor. Then it would be up to us. We estimated that there were about thirty pirates aboard the Hidden Flower, three times the number of our raiders, but we would have the advantage of surprise and planning.
The lock opened. And the gentle vibration of the pirate ship's operating systems ceased. Our suppressor had blanked out both ships, freezing them electronically. This included the life-support systems; the air would soon be going stale. The mechanical systems of the suits were unaffected.
Now was our time. The first party through the lock, in suits, didn't know what had happened. We closed on the three of them in the dark and took them physically prisoner, three to one. We simply disarmed them and carried them to our inner airlock and put them in, after making sure they had no knives or other purely physical weapons tucked out of sight. The Navy personnel would know what to do with them. The pirates could not communicate with their ship, since their suit radios were now nonfunctional. Not that their fellows would have paid much attention; they had problems of their own, now.
But I knew that Captain Brinker, of the Hidden Flower, was not stupid. Brinker was a woman masquerading as a man, and she kept her secret and her position by ruthless cunning. She would know the moment the power failed that the Hidden Flower was under siege, and she would react immediately. My hope was that she would not know by whom she was being attacked, so would not use Spirit as a hostage. I intended to give her no leisure to think of this; speed was essential.
We operated the airlock—all airlocks had manual controls, since emergency use could occur when power was off—and sent in a party of three. These were our scouts, specially versed in stealth; they would tap a signal if all was well, and another if there was trouble, and we would be guided accordingly.
The all-clear signal came, and three more of us went through. The corporal had been in the first party; I was in the second. I operated the lock controls in the darkness without hesitation; I had practiced carefully for this.
Number Two, the corporal, gripped my arm. I touched my helmet to his. "Three more here," he said. "Unconscious."
"Take them out," I said, "I'll secure the center passage."
He loaded the bodies into the lock, having no difficulty because this was the weightless region, then accompanied them back through. That made six pirates out of the way; perhaps twenty-four to go. The more of them we could take out piecemeal, the better off we would be. At this point they could still overwhelm us, if they made a concerted effort.
I moved toward the center of the ship with four men, leaving one to guard the lock. Why weren't there more pirates here? They had been set up to plunder a dead ship; they should have had a dozen on duty, not six. Answer: The captain had caught on when the power failed and had immediately reassigned all but three already outside and the three waiting to follow. But where had they been reassigned? This could be trouble.
It was. This ship was too quiet. There was none of the noise of confusion there should have been. Captain Brinker had probably set a trap, an ambush, and now was waiting for us to blunder into it.
I thought of the five swinging steel balls on Lieutenant Repro's desk. For every action, an equal and opposite reaction. Force translated exactly. We were now in the role of swinging balls. The Hidden Flower had bombarded and boarded us; we had reacted by neutralizing her electronics, capturing her boarders, and boarding her back; and she reacted by laying an internal ambush for us. The speed of the pirates' reaction bothered me. It was almost as if Captain Brinker had anticipated this raid.
Anticipated it? How could she have, unless someone had tipped her off?
Kife! I muttered subvocally. QYV had set up this mission; he could also have set up a countermission. What did I know about him? Only that he operated ruthlessly, and that he wanted my key. Why not lure me to the pirate ship, my sister as the bait, then capture me and the key and the Navy ship, too? It would be written off as a mission that failed; the Navy would cover up its embarrassment in the usual fashion, and I would disappear.
Very well: Accept the notion of a pirate countertrap. How could the pirates hope to deal with the Hammerhead when the suppressor controlled both ships? It would not be enough to kill or capture me and my squad; the Navy ship would remain supreme. There was no way the Hidden Flower could prevail as long as the suppressor operated.
In my mind, one steel ball swung into another, and a new one rebounded. Now I understood!
I touched the man next to me. Our helmets met. "Back," I said. "Evacuate. Fast. Spread the word."
He was a trained man. He did not question the order. He acted like a cog in a fine machine. He touched the man behind.
In moments we were hastily retreatin
g. We met the corporal with the other arriving men. "Out. Quickly," I said to his helmet. "To the inner hull."
We crowded out through the lock, and on to the inner hull, after tapping out the recognition signal. No one balked or hesitated. How glad I was for the type of discipline Sergeant Smith had instilled in his recruits! Now our lives depended on it.
When we were back in the inner hull, in air, I lifted my helmet so I could communicate more freely. "I must talk to the captain immediately."
He came to me in the dark. "You aborted the mission, soldier?" he inquired with a hint of contempt.
"We have been betrayed," I said. "The pirates knew we were coming. They have set a countertrap. We have to nullify it or we're in trouble."
"What trap, soldier?" he asked skeptically.
"I believe there is a traitor among your personnel," I said. "He is going to turn off the suppressor so the pirates can use power weapons to overwhelm the raiding crew. They are hiding now, waiting for that."
"Among my men?" he demanded, outraged. "Among yours, perhaps, if any traitor exists. Not mine!"
"Sir, the ship is yours, but the mission is mine," I reminded him. "I must act to accomplish the mission and to save your ship and the lives of my men. You must facilitate this."
"Sergeant, facilitation of the mission is one thing; an accusation of treason against my crew is another."
"Yes, sir. We must hurry. I must interview each of your crew members in the next few minutes."
"You have some nerve! This is highly irregular."
"It is necessary to the mission, sir."
"That statement gives you authority of a sort," the captain conceded grudgingly. Anger fairly radiated from him. "I shall cooperate. But there will be an investigation of this matter when we return." That was definitely a threat.
"Yes, sir. Please move it along."
Someone had lighted a candle; now we could see. The captain's aristocratic lips quirked. "Start with me, Sergeant."
Anthony, Piers - Tyrant 2 - Mercenary Page 9