by A. D. Bloom
8th planet, L5 Lagrange
The Grinder
Fragments of the cracked moons and planetoids torn apart by the banded blue giant trailed her orbit. Here, the gravitational forces of the system's star and the planet balanced to give the dense field a stable orbit and a free ride. This far out, the light was dim and even active LiDAR pulses struggled to lift the low-albedo rocks of the grinder out of the black. It was foolish to enter without a set of recent charts and here the UNS destroyers finally broke pursuit.
The ships of Devlin's Privateers steamed through the grinder in a line. Hank's naked eye watched Ariadne at the front twist serpentine around a wandering spear of rock not yet settled into a stable orbit. From all directions the jagged mountains of the grinder reached out to skin their hulls with gargantuan Clovis-blades. Between the slow spinning rocks, what little light there was shone off polished torpedo mines. Almost half the ever-alert mines that surrounded their redoubt had been given as reflective a surface as possible. Those were the warnings visible everywhere, on all forward bearings, that said 'come no further'. The other 80% of them had been given a skin by the Shediri that made them hard to spot even with active search beams.
Millet spoke without looking up from the OPS console. "I hope Garlan Foet's boys remembered to open the barn doors for us."
"Ariadne sent the code two minutes ago; she's just crossed the targeting threshold," he said.
The Doxy had been on the arrays for minutes, but now, they were close enough to see her floating between the mountains they'd moved into place to serve as gun mounts.
She'd started as one of thousands of 600-meter, Staas Company haulers made well before the 2164 war. Although obsolete in 2166 she possessed a legacy inertial negation system capable of maintaining a stable field large enough to encompass the alien superstructure and multiple flight decks that Shediri engineers had added in her conversion from hauler to a tender capable of sortieing over six-hundred, 27-meter Shediri raiders.
Hank had seen her flight group in its prime when he was a boy. Less of the bugs' fighters graced the Doxy's decks now. Times had changed. Without the support of Hive Kesik, there had been no replacements in 14 years. The Doxy herself had changed to serve their needs as she always had. Ample space for landings still stretched over two decks, but in other places she looked more like a shipyard. The Alcyone system had plenty of spacers who couldn't set foot on Bofor's Station but still needed repairs and maintenance. They came to the shelter of the Doxy.
The black and white dazzle camo on a flight of Shediri raiders caught the light briefly as the little swarm of nine cut hard gee turns through the smugglers' boats and long haulers holding station around her. Kik clacked and whistled. "Fancy Randall not superior here. He fears our fighters."
"And what would you do about Fancy Randall, Mr. Kik?"
The bug made a scissoring gesture with his upper claws as if he were slicing open the thorax of an enemy.
Chapter 2
ICV Doxy
The Grinder
Hank Devlin asked a lot of the chow on the Doxy and Garlan's crew didn't always deliver, but this time, the Shediri spices they'd used were as fresh as the meat and the water used to make it had been cleaned well. The bugs hadn't even opened a barrel of fermented anything in the mess for days so the place didn't have the lingering, pungent smell that seemed to flavor whatever you ate. For a few moments, he sat on one of the benches in the Doxy's expanded galley lost in the flavor.
Once he heard the concern in old Graves' voice, he knew that moment was over. "Up on the bridge we got something you need to see." Graves had been in too many scrapes and survived too many decades to be scared easily. He could have called on the squack or comms or any number of ways but he came in person, meaning whatever it was it was delicate. The old man didn't say much on the walk up the mainsway to the command module or in the lift.
The doors opened onto a bridge he'd known since he was a boy. "Captain Fo-et," said Hank, intentionally mispronouncing the Captain's name.
"You know my name is pronounced like 'Foot'."
"And I have known that for fourteen years, but you still correct me."
"I'm hoping someday you'll say it right by accident."
"Look...here. It doesn't show up on a feed from any single array," said Graves as he moved to the ship's upgraded version of a tactical console where Singh was tracking the contact. "This is the anomaly that you get when you concatenate the feed from the arrays at either end of the Doxy with two of the haulers holding station a few Ks out. The Doxy's third officer reached up into the projection and expanded it so that Hank could see its one-meter hull and domed arrays more clearly. "It's 147 Ks out right now and holding a complicated but apparently stable 26-point orbit through the local rocks."
"That looks like a surveillance proxy sniffing around."
"It is. It's not a probe made by Staas Company for the UNS or their own privateers. That's a commercial unit a couple of generations old."
"What's the chance Staas Company Intelligence sent it?"
"Low. They gave up sending proxies in here after the tenth one we destroyed."
"You sure about that?"
"It's that or they started sending ones we can't see. The question is currently academic. Staas Intelligence wouldn't bother sending one of those. That is somebody's surplus. I'd say this looks like one of Fancy Randall's toys. If you're sponsored by the Deimos mob, you get all the nice legacy gear."
"So how long has Fancy Randall been watching us?" asked Hank, but he knew the answer.
"Maybe long enough to spot you leaving and track you to steal your kill at Canopus," said Graves.
"Mr. Graves, do you really think Fancy Randall would do that?"
"Fancy Randall is the kind of killer who would murder us all for less than half of what we've got and give the rest to the Deimos mob. He's coming, Captain Hank. Mark my words; he's coming. If that surveillance proxy was there yesterday, we would have spotted it. We're good up here and you know it. Our neighbor is planning something."
"I couldn't have put it better myself, Mr. Graves."
"He's waiting to see if we leave the Doxy unguarded," said Garlan Foet. "I'm going to task one of the gunnery junks to destroy it."
"No."
"What? You want them watching us and listening in on comms?"
"Don't destroy it yet. Not yet. None of us will say a word more about it for now. We can stage its discovery and destruction in a few hours. I think my father and I should have a drunk and maudlin conversation over inter-ship comms first. Not a breath of this to anyone."
It took time to arrange the impromptu bit of theater since he had to do it in person, but within an hour, while Fancy Randall's listening surveillance proxy was still well within range to eavesdrop, he'd returned to the small ready room off Absalom's bridge to await his father's 'unexpected' call.
Hank wanted to think that Ram Devlin's acting had improved over the years, but he wasn't sure if the slurred speech was an affectation or if the man had actually gotten drunk for the performance. So too was the need in his father's voice. This lie was too close to the truth of what lay in the man's heart. It seemed to be Ram Devlin's destiny to pine for what could not be. In the part of the script where Hank used the word 'weakness,' it came out with an edge that surprised him as if he hadn't been aware of the depths of his own disdain.
"What was that, father? Speak clearly. You're drunk and you're rambling. Get to the point."
"Why? That's all I'm asking...Why? Why are we hunted by the UNS? Why do they think we're all pirates?"
"Because at least nine of the ships that take refuge in these Trojans are bloody pirates."
"If our ships and that bastard Fancy Randall's ships sortied together we could win a victory for Earth....a major victory, one big enough that even the Board of Directors and the UN couldn't ignore it... They'd have to give us letters of marque then."
"Let's review. You were a war hero. Then, you decided to disobey or
ders to determine the course of foreign policy for Earth and surrounding systems. Then, you did it again, broke Chun Ye Men out a brig, stole a special forces insertion craft and made an unauthorized treaty with no less than three other species. Prison followed on Otherworld as convict #001. You were still a hero on Earth, but you refused to be their puppet Governor and so spent years in a proper company penal colony before you escaped...You've been on the run and plotting with the Otherworld veterans and rebels for nearly a decade. What do you expect? Earth is never going to treat you or any of us Otherworlders any better. But our day is coming. Someday, we'll control this system and it won't matter what Earth thinks of us."
"It will always matter. We need each other."
"This yen to be liked is a weakness, father. It could get people killed."
"You say every goddamn thing is a weakness. If Fancy Randall agrees to a joint venture and we can make this happen, then Earth will finally see we're on their side. They'll know where we stand and know that when the day comes and Otherworld rebels against the company, we won't abandon Earth in the fight against the Imperium."
"Even if the truly reprehensible Captain Randall agrees, what of the Deimos Mob? They won't allow Fancy Randall and his ships to stop raiding Company shipping and hijacking indies. The Deimos Mob is just like Staas Company; they exist to profit."
"And that's why they'll tell Randall to cease piracy in the Alcyone system after this and switch to privateering. If there's one thing Staas Company has shown, it's the clear path to profit in sanctioned privateering. A letter of marque is a license to steal from the enemy. The Deimos Mob would like nothing more than a cut of that. Fancy Randall will like the idea. He's a throat-cutting, thieving thug even a mother would hang, but he's a smart one."
ICV Ariadne
2.4 Ks out from the Doxy
Hank Devlin put on his helmet and swam the 1.7 Ks between his ship and Ariadne, using puffs off a slim-jim gas belt to accelerate himself across the vacuum. He enjoyed the manual control, but he let the belt do the deceleration. It was a lot trickier and the penalty for screwing up was far worse than just going off course.
In his helmet, he marked a safe spot to land in the targeting reticule and gestured in the projected interface to pass it to the gas belt. The warnings blinked and reminded him to bend his legs as the hull of the Ariadne rushed up at him and the slim-jim belt finally fired its hard deceleration burst and slowed him to under a meter per second. He glomed onto the artificial gravity leaking out the hull, slid 'down' to the C-deck ledge and hatch, and let himself into the Ariadne's airlock.
He didn't call first, of course, and for the very same reason he didn't come in a longboat. Fancy Randall's surveillance proxy would still be watching and listening.
In the command tower of the hybrid, the atmo was largely nitrogen instead of the neon and oxygen mix the bugs in the rest of the hull preferred. Technically Humans and Shediri shared each other's preferred mixtures without significant discomfort, but maintaining both was important in a hybrid ship because food and liquor tasted far better in your own atmo.
Hank knocked and spun the hatch to enter before waiting for a response. His father had, indeed, been into a bottle before the conversation. It sat corked and badly wounded on the integrated desk at which he sat in a bolted down chair. "I've arrived just in time," said Hank. "That bottle is hanging on with its last fingers."
"I keep reaching for the clearzine patch and then putting it down again. I don't think I want my blood cleaned right now," his father said as he rose and pulled a box no larger than his open hand off the high-lipped shelf and opened it. Inside were a set of six half-ovoids like bisected robin's eggs. He twisted them to activate the multi-spectral noisemakers and affixed them to each bulkhead, the deck they stood on, and the ceiling of the small compartment above them. The slightly disconcerting sympathetic vibrations the counter-surveillance units produced in the teeth of Humans inside the field had been sold by the makers as a feature, but he'd known for a fact they themselves had never gotten used to it. Hank had learned to tolerate the noisemakers decades ago when his name was Harry Cozen. They bothered Ram Devlin, but it seemed for once he wouldn't whine about it.
His father activated the last one and said, "Did Fancy Randall's snooper proxy snarf up the comms packets from our conversation?"
"It would have to be broken for it to not have recorded the transmissions. He'll have them deciphered by now," said Hank. Ram Devlin didn't look up from the surface of the desk as Hank lifted the bottle and began to look for a glass. "Why must you be so glum about this matter? We have seen the path to victory. Now is a time to celebrate it and prepare, not revel indulgent in some requiem for the image of yourself that was, in all honesty only vanity. You would prefer to adjust to the problems presented by Fancy Randall, perhaps finding a way to coexist. This cannot be. In this case we must adjust our surroundings to our needs. Fancy Randall has to go, Mr. Devlin, and you bloody well know it."
"Don't call me that. I'm your father."
"Adopted father. And thank you for that, of course. Don't be glum; be happy. This must happen now and we are capable of doing it. It's a class-A problem. There can be no rebellion with men like Randall around. You may be willing to share power on Otherworld once the rebellion comes, but Fancy Randall and his like won't be. Once the Company Cutters flee, you'll have to fight men like him for control if they're still alive."
"Do you really think he bought it? He still might suspect a double-cross."
"Not with your performance. You really do want all those things you said, don't you... No. Fancy Randall won't doubt you. Your performance gave him exactly what he expects of broken Commodore Devlin, the windmill-tilting rebel Governor of Otherworld. Your weakness is an invitation to him. He'll come along for the op. But I'd be surprised if he doesn't attempt to kill you the first chance he gets."
"Even if I wanted to call it off, Dana Sellis has already launched. She's past the point of no return and probably well-inside Fancy Randall's bivouac by now."
Not finding the glass he was looking for, Hank uncorked the bottle and lifted it to salute Dana Sellis before he drank. "God help him."
Chapter 3
9-meter stealthed Shediri boat, Toc'ca
The Grinder
The Shediri sneak craft had been made to carry one bug only. Dana Sellis rode squeezed up next to Clack's chitin sides, and she had to get accustomed to the excited twitches he couldn't seem to control. She decided Clack, aka, Ein Kai Kesik, the pilot and engineer bug that built it, had purposely made it so nobody else could fly it just because he wanted some action himself.
She wished she could have rode on the outside of the thing, but the n-space energy shunts had been placed so close to the hull that they would have sucked the charge from her exosuit. Inside the specially shielded cockpit, one of the engineer bug's extra two arms whacked into the visor of her helmet every few seconds as her old friend struggled to monitor the EM fields bathing them, trickle-feed power from their very limited batteries to the shunts, and pilot the craft at the same time.
Shielded or not, she felt the energy shunting fields penetrate her bones with chill. "When you said this thing was safe, you meant for Humans, too, right?"
The engineer bug tossed its head left and right inside its helmet as the translator he wore caught up with his chatter and whistle. "Interrogative: Not same physical thresholds?"
"Oh no."
"Interrogative: Dana Sellis still have sense of humor? Distance to target 5300 Ks. Ein Kai Kesik is experienced. Trust a bug."
Out through the small canopy and past the edges of the shunts that seemed to dim the little light there was, the broken moons and slow-tumbling mountains of the Grinder slipped silently past on all sides. Clack followed the line they'd plotted together before they'd left the Ariadne's bay. Once they'd flown low over a particularly nasty, low-albedo rock she recognized from planning, she knew they were close. As the sneak craft broke the widow-maker's serrated limb
, she searched the vacuum for Fancy Randall's ships. "We should have line-of-sight now."
The bug rapped a chitin-covered knuckle against her visor and then tapped at the canopy in the place he meant her to look. "Already showing as passive LiDAR contact."
She pinched and spread in front of her visor to zoom in on the contacts as her helmet marked them and displayed the decreasing range. All of them were at full stop. Next to the short-range haulers they used as support ships, the Voracious and her eight escorts sat at anchor in a well-chosen piece of space protected on four sides by large rocks with stable orbits and multiple, unmanned batteries.
"Seeing all their hardware almost makes me wish we had sponsors. The Deimos Mob keeps them well-stocked. Those defensive guns are less than a decade old. You got a line around those surveillance proxies?" she said when her helmet's own arrays finally caught sight of them, buzzing 'round the place like fruit flies.
"Path set to evade them," said the bug's translator in a monotone that didn't express the frustration she saw in his sway. "Easier if you let me fly."
"Their detection threshold on our calculated energy leak is under 1200 meters."
"Clack knows. Clack evades." He rolled the boat over then and barreled in on a tight spiral producing inertial gees greater than their coil sets could compensate for. As she bounced off first the bulkhead and then off Clack, she finally saw the 600-meter hauler at the far side of Fancy Randall's formation. It had just looked like another of the support ships until they'd got close enough to make out all the longboats and knuckledragger mechs ferrying packed containers to her holds. She couldn't see inside them, but it wasn't hard to figure out. In those holds, hidden under some worthless goods, would be the cargo of the Xihute freighters they'd won and then lost to Fancy Randall's flotilla.
"Do you see it?"