Moral High Ground: Crew of the Ninja #1

by Joseph Bradshire

  With a nod to the guard Jon was shoved towards the bridge hatch and escorted off the bridge. While he was exiting another hail came through from Jeff.

  “You know,” Jeff said over the com. “If you want I can just pick up my people and leave here. We don’t want to be here anyway.”

  Captain Cann looked over at Jon. Jon shrugged. It was a pretty good plan. No need for them to be here when the destroyers jumped in.

  Captain Cann com’ed down to the brig. “Mr. Boyd are you finished with the contract?”

  “Yes, signing now,” Boyd responded. “You probably won’t like it, and it might not be approved, but Mr. Becker has signed as binding representative of the Ninja’s crew.”

  “Well then,” Captain Cann said, turning to Jon. “I suppose I have no more use for you, and no more reason to hold you. You best be on your way, quickly. The sooner you leave the less likely it will be I’ll have to blast these two destroyers out of space.”

  * * *

  Jon, Weston and Young Rae were hurried to a shuttle bay and shoved aboard. Before they could strap in properly the pilot was throttling out of the bay. The shuttles were too small for artificial gravity so the ride was rough. Punishing.

  Jon was used to it but Young Rae didn’t have her space legs yet. She looked like she was going to be sick.

  He was about to say something when she said, “Don’t worry about it. I won’t vomit. Probably.”

  Vomiting in zero-g was bad. If she vomited at that moment the acceleration of the shuttle would drive the fluid backward, toward both Weston and Jon. Jon hoped she could hold it down.

  After a short boost, maybe 30 seconds, the shuttle flipped and did half a corkscrew, lining up with the Ninja. The pilot was pretty good, they docked with the Ninja’s top airlock in moments and the crew chief pulled and pushed them out of the shuttle.

  The pilot and crew chief of the shuttle said nothing, closing the airlock and pulling away. They had no intention of being caught out in open space if, and when, a pair of hostile destroyers showed up.

  Jon couldn’t blame them. He felt naked on the shuttle, vulnerable. Not that the Ninja was much better. It had decent shields and a jump drive but no weapons at all. Compared to a real warship the hull was paper thin.

  Jon hurried with Weston and Young Rae to the bridge. Weston sat at the operations station, Jon at sensors and Young Rae sat at the communications station. Jon would have objected but it was as good a place for her to be as any.

  “Smooth plan,” Jeff said. “I think my heroic rescue was the best part.”

  “Yeah,” Weston answered. “And we made a massive deal to, we are going to be rich. I think we’ll keep Jon as captain.”

  Small talk. Not something you got on a military ship, at all. Something Jon was going to have to deal with if he was going to stay in command. Lack of discipline.

  A hail came in from the Toronto.

  “This is Captain Cann. I’m deploying ion emitters throughout this volume of space. If the destroyers come in their sensors will be pumped full of static. They won’t be able to get a read on Candia or your jump vector. So if you would jump out as soon as you’re able it would be appreciated.”

  “Yes Captain Cann. No problem. Thank you,” Jon said.

  “No need to thank me. Remember you are being paid. And soon enough we’ll need good cargo runners.”

  There was a voice in the background. Mr. Boyd, the lawyer who had negotiated with Weston, was saying something.

  “It seems we are paying you more than we imagined. The contract is for ‘each member of the crew’. We had assumed there were only the three, but now it’s at least four. Our lawyer is nervous there may be even more members to pay out.”

  “No,” Weston answered, making zero effort to hide his glee. “Just the four of us.”

  “Good,” Adam said. “Now please, if you would, get the hell out of my space.”

  “No problem...” Jon answered.

  “Pleasure doing business with you...” Weston answered at the same time.

  The Toronto dropped the connection.

  “Okay, Jeff, jump us out of here. Fast as possible. Any direction, just clear the system. We’ll recalculate for Cao later.”

  “Aye captain. I already have the coil spinning.” Jeff said.

  A moment later Jeff hit the big red button and they jumped clear.

  Chapter Seven

  Young Rae looked around the table. Studying the crew. Weston was pleased with himself, the acreage he’d secured on Candia was a fantastic deal. She should try to act grateful to him for the rest of the voyage. Even though an undeveloped thousand acres was nothing next to her family’s wealth he would respect her appreciation.

  Glancing over at Jeff she was alarmed to see how hungry he looked. Ravenous even. He must have spent the better part of a day hiding away in his water cupboard. She didn’t know much about the biology of the aquatic mods of Oceania, but it looked to her like he required extra calories. He ate like he did.

  Then she saw the deception in his eyes. Funny man. He had eaten, and eaten well, he was pretending to be starving so that Weston didn’t catch on that he’d been eating more than his ration while they were away. A subtle glance to Weston, a feigned interest in his meat pie.

  Jeff reached for a desert, a custard. Young Rae could see that he was committed to the ruse. Afraid to give Weston any reason to count ration inventory. He’d count it up at some point, he was very efficient, but he probably wouldn’t count until they needed to resupply. Jeff was buying himself time before being berated.

  Jon, he was harder to read. He was worried. He wanted to ask her something but didn’t want to be rude about it. He thought she was some sort of breakable object, a flower likely to wilt. He was looking for his angle. His opening. He was very obviously sweet on her, but how far he’d take it was a mystery. Probably nowhere. He barely realized he was interested. Yet. Those military types, they kept their hearts under lock and key.

  Young Rae could see it then, he wanted to know why she was being chased. She knew why, just not who. He’d want to know who, and then try to discern the enemy’s reach and resources. She read the disappointment in the incompleteness of her answer before he even asked the question.

  Young Rae could read all of this with a glance. Barely trying. For the last few years her ability had grown stronger. At first she thought it was luck she could guess what people were thinking. Then the few horrible months living with the fear of becoming a telepath. A mind reader, shunned by society, unable to relate to others. Locking herself away from human contact and all the noise and confusion of having multiple minds intruding on her mind.

  Most mind readers killed themselves. And rightly so.

  That didn’t happen. Young Rae didn’t read minds. She read faces. Almost as bad.

  * * *

  Jon didn’t know how to ask. He really didn’t want to upset the girl. Who knew how she’d react. She’d done well so far but there was only so much a person could take. He didn’t want to push her over the edge. He’d seen intense situations break people, hard people. Or at least those that thought they were hard.

  Jon looked around at his brother. He was obviously starving after all his time in the tank. He seemed fine otherwise. Weston couldn’t be happier about his victory over the deal he’d cut with the Candians. They were both holding up remarkably well under the circumstances. Maybe Young Rae was doing just as well.

  Maybe start with some smaller issues.

  “Weston, do you think the Candians will honor the deal?” Jon asked.

  “They better. It was a fair deal.” Weston answered.

  “Still. What’s to force them? Nothing really.” Jon said.

  “They’ll honor it,” Young Rae said. “They aren’t the type to go back on a fair deal.”

  “How would you know that?” Jon asked. “You barely met Captain Cann.”

  “I could see it in his face. He and his lawyer both took the deal seriously. They mean to
honor it to the best of their ability.”

  Jon thought on that a moment. He wanted to believe Young Rae’s take on it, had no reason not to.

  He was stalling. Whether the Candians gave them the land or not wouldn’t matter to his mission. Getting this young lady to Cao was what mattered.

  He turned back to Young Rae. She was already looking at him. He decided to press her. He blurted out, “So who are you and why are you being chased?”

  That could have come out better. She wasn’t frowning though. She was actually smiling. Maybe she was handling the stress better than all of them. That was new. Jon was used to being the rock in any given situation, holding everyone else up. Even when he wasn’t captain of a warship he’d been the solid core of any crew he’d been on.

  She responded, “I don’t know who is chasing me. I’m sorry that disappoints you. I only know why. I’m the daughter of one of the Great Families in the Cao Sector. I’m politically valuable. My capture and ransom can give influence over my father.”

  “So you’re like a Cao princess of some sort?” Jeff asked.

  Goddamn Jeff, he was excited by this. Probably all those video games. Saving the princess and what not.

  Jon knew she was a VIP, that was obvious. No one gets a covert military extraction if they’re a nobody. He hadn’t expected her to be that high up.

  “Why didn’t you have body guards?” Jon asked.

  “I was on Earth anonymously, with one discrete body guard posing as my roommate. He disappeared about a week before your big red man came to retrieve me.”

  Curious. Someone knew who she was and had the resources to hire warships to come after her. Some sort of dynastic trouble, no doubt.

  Weston cut in. “We should play it safe. Plot a course way out around the Rickson Expanse. Come into Cao from a completely different hemisphere.”

  “Agreed,” Jon said. “That’ll take us at least a week off our time table, but that’s blown already.”

  Jon stood up. Finally, something to do. Having a plan always lifted his spirits.

  “You people finish eating. Jeff here looks famished. I’ll get the computer working on the course,” Jon said.

  He turned to Young Rae. “You’ll be a little late in arriving, but I’d say that’s good. They won’t know when to expect you.”

  Young Rae nodded, wordlessly, and Jon left the mess hall.

  As he was walking to the bridge he pondered why anyone would want to go back to Cao at all, if there were kidnappers and killers waiting.

  Probably, in Cao, the daughter of the head of a Great House would have all the protection she needed.

  Probably.

  * * *

  Jon looked at the massive blue super giant on the vid screen. LV421, one of the biggest objects in that sector of space. The screen was magnifying the image, but not by much. They were close enough that Jon had raised the shields to block out the intense heat and radiation.

  It was that radiation he was looking for. Get close enough in to something that hot and any possible pursuer would have a hell of a time following their trail. Their thruster wash would be lost to the solar winds.

  Jon hadn’t imagined he’d have to use advanced deep space escape and evade tactics on what was supposed to be a simple delivery job but life has a way of twisting and turning.

  “Jeff, plot a course around the star, and watch the power levels on the shields. Any fluctuation and we need to back off at speed. Weston will be scanning the surface for swells. We should have plenty of time to evade any flares cast off but only if we spot them.”

  Jeff went about his job wordlessly. Plotting a course around the star.

  After an hour of careful navigation they were right where Jon wanted them.

  “Okay, now boost hard as you can for 5 seconds on this heading. Everyone strap in, this will strain the compensators.” Jon entered the vector into his station and piped it over to Jeff.

  He looked over at Weston, who gave the thumbs up, and over at Young Rae at the communications station. She was strapping in but never took her eyes off the view screen, at the roiling cauldron of plasma. It really was mesmerizing. Beautiful and deadly. Giving off the energy essential to create life, or destroy it.

  Everyone was silent. Nervous. Here goes nothing.

  The short boost took them in the direction of the first planet in the system, a large hunk of dense rock of over 3 earth masses, its surface blasted and baked by the star.

  They came around the trailing side of the planet, chasing it as it revolved around LV421, coasting but picking up speed as they were grabbed by the gravity of the planet. They accelerated straight toward the planet, not engaging their thrusters but picking up more and more velocity via the grav assist.

  Weston was white knuckled, silent and nervous.

  Jon kept his eyes glued to the readouts, this part was tricky. Their vector kept bending toward the planet, bending and kept bending. Jon was about to have Jeff edge them off a bit when the vector stabilized.

  They just missed the planet as they whipped by, more than doubling their speed.

  “Slingshot successful,” Jeff said.

  He turned to Jon to gloat, smiling. The computer had done the calculations but technically Jeff did the flying. Jon nodded back. They weren’t done yet.

  “Now let’s see if we are heading in the right direction.” Jon checked the read outs, double checking the figures and graphs.

  “Good enough. We should hit LV421-3’s orbital shadow without boosting in around 76 hours. Good work everyone.” Jon looked around at the relief on their faces.

  This was a tricky move but worth the risk. It would throw off any possible pursuit. Using the star’s heavy radiation to mask their position and any residual signature from their short boost. Then not using the thrusters at all as they traveled outsystem using gravity assists, their position should be next to impossible to pinpoint.

  When they reached LV421-3 they would jump out of the system, using the gas giant’s mass and complex ring system to obfuscate their jump signature. Unless a ship was in system and watching from the correct angle the jump out would be not be detected. Which was highly unlikely.

  Now all he had to worry about was boredom.

  And what was waiting for them in Cao.

  * * *

  “Checkmate,” Young Rae said.

  “Again!” Jon was confused. He was sure he had her this time. She was down 2 pieces. How could she have come back from that?

  34 games in a row, all losses. Impossible.

  Since LV421 they’d taken a circuitous route in order to approach Cao from a completely unknown and unknowable direction. It was overly cautious, and took an extra week, but Jon had enjoyed his time.Despite losing over and over at chess.

  He’d been somewhat distracted. Brooding over how his inquiry and reinstatement was going back on Earth. The detour they’d taken meant it would be weeks before he returned. He worried that his absence could be a detriment to his case.

  “You sure you aren’t a mind reader?” Jon asked. It was almost like she knew Jon’s strategy before he even played it.

  “Of course not. You were distracted. Thinking about your inquiry again?”

  “No. Of course not.” He lied.

  “Right.” She didn’t believe him. “We’ll keep practicing, you’ll be able to beat me someday.”

  Someday maybe, but he wouldn’t bet on it. He’d come close to winning so many times only to come up short. It was uncanny. At least chess was more competitive than poker. They’d tried that the first few nights and she’d cleaned them out. Weston considered himself to be the king of poker, and he really was good. Young Rae, however, was on another level entirely.

  Jon didn’t mind losing though. In fact, he kind of liked it. Spending time with Young Rae, whiling away the hours. Some nights they barely touched the board, they just talked and laughed.

  “Okay. One more game then I’m going to bed.”

  Young Rae always said that, b
ut then she’d stay up for at least two more. Maybe she had as much fun spending time with him as he had with her?

  Jon felt a shifting in his guts and sighed. The Ninja had jumped into Cao. Finally.

  “Well. Looks like we’ve arrived, let’s go see what we can see.”

  Young Rae accompanied Jon to the bridge, taking her usual seat at the communications station. Jeff was already there, handling the jump. Weston arrived from whatever it was he did with his time. He spent a lot of time in his room.

  “Sensors up. Full active. Let’s get the lay of the land,” Jon said.

  Weston went about booting up the sensors while Young Rae scanned the coms. Cao was big enough to mount a hyperwave, a large installation that could punch a signal out in real time across the entire system. Through relays it could push a near real time signal all the way to Earth as well.

  Soon Jon’s father and anyone else monitoring would know they’d arrived. Jon wasn’t sure if that was a good thing or a bad thing. Over the last two weeks he’d gotten used to being off the grid, hidden. Now, with full sensors active and jumping into wide open space, there were no more secrets. No more hiding.

  “What now?” Young Rae asked.

  “Now we approach slow, and watch. See if anyone flings a warhead our way. Remember they can see our jump signature in real time, easy, so we need to be careful.” Four-dimensional thinking was difficult but Battlefleet captains practiced it. Constantly.

  “This is my home system,” Young Rae said. “My father is very powerful. Surely no one would dare attack us openly.”

  “Well let’s just make sure they can’t,” Jon said. “We take our time. We scan. Take it nice and slow. Keep the jump coil hot the whole time.”

  Weston groaned. Jump drives were delicate, leaving it hot for an extended time was hard on it. It would need to be overhauled soon. Overhauls weren’t cheap. There was also the slim chance the drive would shatter all together, full melt down. Replacement was costly. You could almost buy a new ship for the cost of installing a new drive.