by Kal Spriggs
This street, though, lay almost empty. A scrawny, mangy dog slunk away from them. “Sir...” Alannis started to speak, but Lieutenant Commander Douglass was already halfway down the street.
“This doesn't look right,” Chuni said, her head sweeping the area for threats.
“Sir!” Alannis rushed forward to where Lieutenant Commander Douglass was, “Sir, we need to get out of here, there's something...”
Just as she reached him, she saw a half dozen armed men spill out onto the street around them. Lieutenant Commander Douglass went down. Stunner hit, Alannis thought as she saw her former boss start to twitch and jerk. Alannis's hand dropped to her holstered pistol, but before she could draw it, a stunner hit her.
The pain overwhelmed her senses. She couldn't see, couldn't hear, her body jerked and she tasted blood from where she must have bit her tongue. The electrical current let up, but Alannis was too shaken to put up a fight as someone jerked her hands behind her back and tied her wrists.
“What do we do with the man?” One of their attackers asked.
“Boss said the woman was the important one,” another man said. “Kill him.”
“No!” Alannis shouted. She twisted around so that she could see Lieutenant Commander Douglass. His eyes had gone wide and he fought against the hands that held him.
One of the pirates put his pistol behind Douglass's head and fired. Alannis was close enough that blood and brains splattered her face and some went in her mouth. She gagged in shock and horror. “You bastards!” Alannis snarled.
“Bag her and gag her,” the leader snapped.
One of the pirates grabbed her by the hair on the back of her head and then stuffed a rag in her mouth. A moment later, they drew a bag down over her head.
The last thing she saw before the bag came down over her eyes was the ruined face of Lieutenant Commander Douglass.
***
Lieutenant Forrest Perkins was on bridge watch. The Captain was down on the planet and the XO was taking a well-deserved rest for the moment. While Lieutenant Commander Voronkov was in engineering... Forrest was the senior officer on the bridge.
That made him more than a bit nervous. Yet he also felt oddly confident. Part of that was that Captain Beeson and Lieutenant Commander Douglass had entrusted him with the job, and part of it was that he'd been empowered all along.
While other militaries had a very rigid structure, the Baron's United Colonies had adopted a stance of personal empowerment and initiative. There were processes and procedures... but most commanders encouraged their officers and enlisted to address and fix problems as they came up, rather than waiting to be told what to do about them.
Which was why he stood over the sensor station. “Those ships still moving?” Forrest asked.
“Yes, sir,” the Tech Specialist said crisply.
Forrest frowned. There was nothing overtly hostile about the five ship formation moving to the Constellation's rear quadrant... except for the fact that another five ships had moved into her forward quadrant.
Both clusters of ships would be in parallel orbits unless the Constellation made any orbital adjustments. If they did, without a severe acceleration the ship would be forced to move very close –possibly even through-- one of the two formations. The Constellation was capable of such maneuvers, but the pirates probably didn't know that.
And the Captain may not want them to know that, Forrest thought, unless it comes to fighting.
And that was the question, really. If this was a maneuver designed to spook him or to learn the Constellation's capabilities, the absolute worst thing he could do would be to maneuver to avoid them. On the other hand, if this was preparation for an attack, it would be stupid of him not to move out of their firing box... and in that case, he also needed to go to battle stations.
When he thought about it that way, his decision was clear enough. He turned to Chief Petty Officer Donitz. “Put us on battle-stations,” Forrest said, “Prepare for maneuvers.”
***
“Shots fired!” A voice snapped out on Daniel's comm.
Daniel looked up sharply and he saw James Copley's eyes had gone wide in surprise.
“What's going on?” Daniel asked, his voice flat.
“I don't know,” Copley responded. “I told my men to stand down....” He waved over his assistant. “Find out what's happening.”
“Captain Beeson,” a panting voice said over Daniel's comm unit. Daniel recognized Chuni's voice after a moment, her growling voice heavy with anger. “Lieutenant Commander Douglass and Ensign Giovanni were ambushed. I'm headed back to the shuttle, the ambushers have not pursued me.”
Oh no, Daniel thought as he realized that the Emperor's sister was either prisoner or dead. Daniel glared at James Copley, “You assured me that my people would be protected.”
“Look,” Copley said, “I had nothing to do with this. My people are just as in the dark as...”
There came a muffled explosion and dust rained from the ceiling. An alarm began to sound overhead. Copley rushed over to a screen and his face hardened as it showed smoke and gunfire in the main corridor.
“Those bastards,” Copley growled. On the screen Daniel could make out raggedly dressed men swarming forward before the screen went to static.
“It seems you don't have as much control here as you suggested,” Daniel interrupted.
“Those men attacking are Rickey One-Eye's people, they're slavers.” James Copley said. “They have no reason to attack me!”
Daniel raised an eyebrow, “You were discussing with me the possibility of turning over any slavers to my people for trial and punishment.”
“Well, yeah, but they shouldn't know about it,” Copley snapped. “The last thing I wanted was them panicking and attacking. Bunch of idiots... now I'm going to have to deal with them.” He lifted his comm, “Romona, get our reaction team moving, I want Rickey's people taken down and taken down hard.”
If these slavers are moving against him, they'll probably be moving against my ship, too, Daniel thought. “I need to get back to my ship, is there a back way out of here?”
Copley looked over at him over his shoulder, “Just what kind of lair would this be without an escape route? I can even have a shuttle take you up to my ship, a way to prove my intentions.”
Daniel looked over at Staff Sergeant Witzke. “Staff Sergeant, will that be secure enough?”
“I'm concerned about anti-air weapons,” she said. “But it's more likely the enemy will have those aimed at our shuttle than elsewhere.” She gave a shrug, “It's not the safest course, but with the Constellation providing overwatch, it should work.”
“Right,” Daniel nodded. He'd served in the ground fighting on Faraday when Lucius Giovanni had liberated the planet... but this kind of thing was outside his normal realm of experience. That had been an all-or-nothing assault against a Chxor planetary defense center on his home world. This was a brawl between pirate factions on a very different world.
“Fine,” Daniel nodded, “let's do it.”
***
Chapter XI
Sapphire City, Sapphire, Gamma Serpentis System
Neutral Space
December 12, 2407
“No movement on the Navy boy shuttle,” Two-Fingers's spotter said.
Rickey gnawed at his thumbnail as he looked out the window. He'd sent his people in on the assault as he'd discussed with Two-Fingers... but he hadn't led them like the other slaver captain had insisted. Rickey knew that James Copley's base was a warren of tunnels and hardened bunkers. He wasn't about to lead any kind of attack there.
No, he'd hung back where he and Two-Fingers had set up a command post with several anti-air batteries. Rickey's men had two sets of Scorpion interceptor missiles. The shoulder-mounted weapons weren't the newest of equipment, but they had worked well enough for his purposes... mostly taking out militia or local defense forces patrol craft that stumbled across one of his raid groups while on a planet.
&nb
sp; The light but powerful missile could damage even an armored shuttle or patrol boat out to low orbit. Since the missiles were relatively simple, if slow, the only real question was if the warhead could acquire a proper military ship.
Two-Fingers' three teams had Archon plasma pulsars. The heavy, rapid firing cannons had less overall range in atmosphere but they were designed to absolutely shred anything that came nearby... and they required time to set up. They also required a full power supply, which was why all three of the systems sat in a tight formation around the bunker that housed their power truck.
Since Two-Fingers had departed to ready his ships, Rickey had appropriated the secure bunker as his own base of operations. The added security of four meters of rock and reinforced concrete above him just left him feeling quite a bit better about things.
“What happened down near the fish market?” Rickey snapped out at one of his lieutenants.
The small man flinched, “Don't know yet, boss. Rackham had a team down there, but we don't know if they were attacked or they attacked someone.”
Rickey scowled, but he didn't say more. Rackham had provided them the tip. That didn't mean he trusted the man. Rackham was an opportunist... and it might well be that he was in league with this warship, too. After whatever his men had done, the team of Marines had withdrawn to their shuttle with speed. That had stopped Rickey's plans on taking them down and forced his hand on assaulting the base before Copley had time to get his men ready.
Not that they had much to get ready, he thought, even as he brought up the comms channel with his assault team.
“First team is down, they ran into some kind of explosive trap!” A voice shouted.
“They have flamethrowers, shoot them! Shoot them now!”
Rickey scowled at the confused chatter. While his men had never really fought an organized opponent, he had expected better results.
“Oh god, oh god, they're behind us...”
“This is Rickey One-Eye,” Rickey snapped, “What's the status?”
He heard more screams and shouts and he set his comm down in disgust. It seemed they'd mostly fallen apart in there. Perhaps he should have been more selective in his recruiting.
Nah, he thought, this just saves on the pay afterward. Rickey wouldn't have to pay the ones that died. In fact, he'd be able to seize their possessions along with any loot taken from Copley. He'd be able to recruit more just like them another day. Surely even with their losses they'd be able to push through. After all, he'd sent over five hundred of his men at Copley's bunker.
A distant explosion lifted his head and he looked up towards the bunker, a frown on his scarred face. There was no way that Copley would be able to hold out. Even if he tried, surely one of his men would sell him out... right?
***
Peggy “Romona” Smarekar wasn't a slaver. She was a pirate. That was a small but important distinction for her... because while she didn't mind murdering and stealing, even she had limits on what was acceptable.
She'd ended up working for James Copley for one important reason: he'd defeated her former boss in a hard-fought fight. He was tougher and meaner than anyone else she'd ever served under, he paid his people fair, got them good equipment, and he had a weird sense of honor that while she didn't really understand, it still left her with a weird warm feeling.
She needed that warm feeling here on Sapphire. Romona hated the cold. She'd grown up on a hot, semi-tropical planet and she didn't even like the chill of climate-control on ship... much less the aching, damp chill of Sapphire City even in the summer.
Still, she respected her boss.
That was why she lay on a narrow ledge that looked over a corridor and watched dozens --perhaps hundreds-- of slavers as they rushed down the tunnel.
Most of them were scum, even in the pirate world. They were killers, rapists, and the worst kind of filth. Rickey One-Eye was known for raiding prisons and offering positions to everyone from thugs to child molesters and pimps. Of course, those that didn't accept were either killed or enslaved.
Romona wasn't a fan. In fact, she'd been itching to kill the lot of them for months. Most of them were posers, without any real spine or the ability to be good pirates. They were weak and soft and she couldn't wait to show them what real killers were capable of.
The intercom system rattled and she smiled as she recognized the signal. Rickey's men had jammed the comms, but there were other ways to do things, after all.
Romona kicked the heavy glass jugs off the ledge with one leg even as she rolled onto her side and looked down.
Two of them had shattered on impact with the stone floor, splashing their contents across a dozen stunned slavers, while the third had crushed a man's skull and rolled down the corridor, tripping slavers as they stumbled over it and slid on the wet oil that had washed across the floor.
The seas of Sapphire weren't nearly so lifeless as the land. One of the bigger creatures was the violet arachno- squid, which had a large sack of harsh-scented oil that served a number of purposes for the colony. The main use was in cooking and heating oil since it burned very well indeed.
One of the slavers spotted Romona and his eyes went wide as he recognized the smell.
Romona grinned as she twisted off the end of the flare. Bright red light flared, filling the corridor in a hellish palate. She heard them start to scream as she dropped the flare... but the screams rose to a higher crescendo as the oil ignited. She casually drew her pistol and fired at the one jug that had rolled a dozen meters away. It shattered and ignited at the same time, billowing out with a roil of heat.
As the slaver scum below her writhed in the flames, she held out her hands and enjoyed the heat rising off them. The blower fans sucked away the worst of the smoke, but she could bask in the heat and enjoy the screams.
It's nice to feel warm, she thought.
***
Alannis awoke to the distant sound of gunfire and muffled explosions. Her head came up, but she still had a bag over her head. It felt as if she'd been tied to a chair. She couldn't move her hands or feet, but she could feel the cold metal of the chair and she could feel it sway under her weight.
Captured by slavers, she thought, my life seems to get more and more like one of the bad serials the silly girls used to watch religiously back in school. Still, she didn't need any reminder that this wasn't one of those silly romances where the princess was saved and none of the heroes were even injured in the process. She could still see the ruined face of Lieutenant Commander Douglass in her mind's eye.
“She's awake,” a voice muttered. “Let the boss know.”
She waited patiently as she could manage. It wasn't hard to keep from pleading or questions. Alannis wasn't about to beg for anything. She had survived the Chxor invasion of Nova Roma and the Dreyfus Mutiny. She wasn't about to let a group of two-bit pirates break her.
She heard a door open and she steeled herself. This would get ugly, she knew, especially if they had any inkling of who she was. They wouldn't realize that Lucius wouldn't bargain with kidnappers, they'd assume they could ransom her or even make demands.
“Get that off her,” a low, oddly familiar voice spoke.
Someone pulled the bag off her head and she blinked at the painfully bright light. It took her a long moment to focus against the glare of the harsh, artificial lights. The first thing she saw was that they were underground, in a basement or bunker carved out of the solid rock of the island.
The next thing she made out was the face of the man in charge.
She jerked against the restraints as she recognized his handsome face and his well-groomed blonde hair, “You son of a bitch!”
Reese Leone winced at that, “Alannis...”
“You kidnapped me?” Alannis shook her head.
“I had to know why Lucius sent you here,” Reese said. He shrugged, “I'm sorry for your treatment, but I have to make do with the resources I have.”
“You killed an officer of the United Colonies Fl
eet,” Alannis snapped. “You've worked with pirates and mercenaries who have killed innocent men and women...”
“Oh, like I've had much of a choice?” Reese's face had hardened. “I'm an outlaw... remember? Your brother made it so I can't live in the open... so I have to make a living with those who view arrest warrants and bounties as credentials.” He looked away and spat on the floor, “And as for blood on my hands... your brother has far more of it. How many people did he lead to their deaths so that he could become Emperor?”
Alannis shook her head, “It's nothing like that at all! The people called for him to take charge. He tried to turn them down, but--”
“Oh, please,” Reese snarled. “Do not tell me that you believe his propaganda too!?” He gave a hollow laugh, “I bought his 'selfless service' line for too long, but I've seen just how self-serving he can be!”
Alannis shook his head, “Reese, you're crazy if you think Lucius is some kind of megalomaniac. I mean, for God's sake, he could have set himself up as a dictator!”
“You're saying he hasn't?” Reese sneered. “He's pushed out anyone who speaks against him. I've been run out because I didn't like how he planned to use you...”
“You,” Alannis snarled, “are a wanted man because you hacked my implant.”
Reese looked away, “I wanted us to have a family, I wanted a child, Alannis... was that so wrong?”
“No,” Alannis said, “you wanted to control me and that is wrong.”
Reese didn't respond for a long moment. When he did, he stared at the floor. “I can see that it's pointless to argue with you for now. So I'll just move on to questions. What does Lucius know about my operation here? Does he know about the significance of the artifacts I'm here to buy? Does he have a force waiting to intercept when I flee the planet?”
His questions caught her so off-guard that Alannis shook her head and answered honestly, “Reese, Lucius doesn't even know you're here. I'm not even supposed to be here.”