Eternity or Bust: Mission 16 (Black Ocean)

by J. S. Morin

  Hard plastic balls collided with a cracking sound. The rec room of the Rucker Syndicate base on Ithaca didn’t have a bowling alley, but there was a perfectly serviceable billiard table for a wizard to practice his craft. Mort had heard rumors that scientists liked to shoot pool because they could predict the movement of the balls with math and physics. But Mort didn’t believe that hooey for an instant. It was a game meant for chaos, and the crash of a cue ball into a field of spherical toy asteroids was begging for magic to sort out where everything belonged.

  Enzio didn’t have the muscle memory of a pool player. Nor did he have the callused spot on the back of his thumb where the cue slid with each shot. Mort meant to rectify that.

  Not like there was much else worth doing around the wet, stinking sauna of a moon. At least back on the Odysseus there had been corridors to roam and a defunct old science system to belittle. Here, everything was in working order, the quarters were cramped, and until they built the permanent apartments down by the riverfront, there wasn’t much getting away from people.

  Not that Mort planned to stay long.

  Enzio was dancing on thin ice, and this jungle heat wasn’t meant for ice to begin with. Even maintaining the illusion of thin ice to dance on was straining Mort’s acting muscles. Sooner or later, he’d have to skedaddle. His major hang-up, presently, was finding a ride off this moon.

  “There you are,” Tanny snapped as soon as the door opened.

  Enzio’s hand never faltered as he lined up a shot. It took more than a sudden entrance or an angry syndicate heiress to make Mort flinch. He found his target and slammed the cue ball into a mass of multicolored orbs, scattering them into holes around the table.

  He stood upright. “Here I am, indeed.”

  “Can you believe it?” Tanny asked. “Can you believe the gall of that bastard? He actually expects me to show up at his wedding.”

  Enzio shrugged. “You showed up at the last three.”

  Tanny’s scowl redirected from unfocused ire to squarely in Enzio’s direction. “Not funny. I’ve got a million things to manage here, and that clown is off joyriding, pretending he didn’t just fleece us out of an asteroid belt at the cost of a moon he didn’t own.”

  “Half a moon,” Mort pointed out. “And it was only Chuck Ramsey who lost anything in the end. Everyone else came out ahead, including us.”

  Tanny fumed with her arms crossed and jaw locked shut. “Fine. Maybe. But that doesn’t mean I owe him anything.”

  “’Course not,” Mort said, fishing in the pockets of the billiard table for all the balls he’d just sunk. “But you’re important. You’re a big deal. You don’t have to show up everyplace you’re invited, but you’ve got to keep up appearances. Bear in mind, that ex of yours is still in better graces with your father than you are. You should be living in fear of the day that bastard says ‘Yeah, Don. I’ll take that standing job offer.’ Because then you’ll not only have a rival in the syndicate, but Don might start getting funny ideas about adoption and who should carry on his legacy.”

  “Carl was shit at running a syndicate,” Tanny said, pointing out the window in the vague direction of the Ramsey half of Ithaca, which by definition lay well beyond the horizon. “His own damn father ousted him. He’s not fit to run shady nightclub, let alone the Rucker Syndicate.”

  “And if you can keep him at arm’s length, he’ll never learn how,” Mort said as he racked up a new game. “This isn’t heist work anymore. This is grand strategy. Be seen. Be visible. Be everyone’s best friend until they become an enemy. Your father is on the board of eleven charities. He gets invited to birthday parties for parliament ministers’ kids. He gets invited to weddings.”

  “Oh, God,” Tanny said with a new dread in her voice. “You don’t think he’ll invite Don, do you?”

  Enzio shrugged. Mort snickered inwardly. She really was a simple creature. Point her at a problem and she’d go after it like a bulldog. Make shadow puppets on the wall and she’d bark herself silly trying to scare them off. “Couldn’t say. Don’t know him that well. It’d be a smart play for him, even if Don doesn’t show. If he shows and you don’t, it might look like sour grapes.”

  Tanny’s gaze wandered before fixing on Enzio. “When the hell did you turn into such a philosophical strategic adviser? You’ve never given me advice on anything more important than sexual positions before.”

  Inwardly, Mort cringed, but Enzio’s knowing smile never faltered. “What can I say? You’re on a hostile moon with a guy who wants you gone. Your ex might be making a play for your spot in the Rucker Syndicate. I suppose I’m just a wartime consigliere.”

  # # #

  The coordinates were right. Carl double-checked since things were liable to get all question-filled and angry, and he didn’t want to have to do this twice. Easing back the throttle, he dropped the Mobius to a halt, then did the same with the star drive.

  It was odd being able to control astral depth. A half billion pilots across the galaxy did it every day, but Carl had grown used to that being wizards’ work.

  The stars resolved themselves into pinpricks of white set off against the Black Ocean. A yellow blip stood out among them, small and distant, but vastly closer than any other.

  Sol.

  The sun at the heart of it all, so the brochures claimed.

  It didn’t look like much from outside the Kuiper Belt. Titan, Mars, Luna, and a dozen minor lunar colonies around Saturn and Jupiter were all prime galactic real estate. A thousand space stations orbited the sun at varying distances. But at the heart of it all was the crown jewel of ARGO: Earth.

  But like any high-class establishment, Sol had security working the door.

  “Vessel Mobius, this is Captain Jared Malcolm of the ENV Chesterfield. Captain Ramsey, I presume?”

  Carl took a deep breath and hit the comm. “Yes, sir. That’s me. Transmitting docking protocol. Weapons and shields cold. Main thrusters powering down.”

  Good as his word, Carl shut down the Mobius to prepare for boarding.

  Roddy was the first to arrive in the cockpit. “What the fuck’s going on? They have some way to pull us out of astral?”

  Yomin called over Roddy’s head. “What’s the plan?”

  Amy’s sleepy voice called from the common room. “Carl…? What did you do?”

  Unbuckling from the pilot’s chair and counting on the Chesterfield to figure out the docking without too much trouble, Carl threaded his way through the growing crowd at the front of the ship. “It’s all right, everyone. Nothing to worry about. I told you I’d come up with something before we got to Earth. I never promised I’d tell everyone in advance what I had in mind. It’s too late to bail on this plan now. I’ve got everything under control.”

  “Magic says it’s never too late,” Esper pointed out, arms crossed, as Carl passed through the common room.

  “Hold that thought in case this doesn’t go as planned,” Carl said, firing a finger-blaster in Esper’s direction. It was the most dangerous weapon he was bringing besides his silver tongue.

  “In case what doesn’t go as planned?” Roddy demanded, trailing after him.

  Carl paused, catching the doorway to the cargo hold just as he was passing through. “Oh. I’m handing myself over to Earth Navy. If I can bargain my way out of this, we’ll be all set.”

  “Wait!” Yomin shouted as Carl’s boots clanged down the stairs toward the airlock. “Earth Navy doesn’t negotiate. That’s practically their motto.”

  “It’s more of a policy than a motto,” Carl called back without looking. Hesitate and the crew might overtake him and restrain him until he explained himself. While that wasn’t the last thing Carl needed, it was far enough down the list that he didn’t want to chance it. “And policies can be flexible if the price is right.”

  # # #

  The Chesterfield was an Earth Navy destroyer, Pegasus class. They didn’t mess around in Sol space. The little customs skiffs that patrolled border space could h
ave landed in this thing’s main hangar bay.

  Airlock doors opened, and Carl’s hands shot up into classic robbery-victim pose in an instant. Four crewmen with blaster rifles were waiting for him. “I’m unarmed,” he assured them.

  A second lieutenant stepped forward and forced Carl against the wall face first, wrenching his arms behind him and applying a pair of restraints. A forearm across his back crushed Carl flat and forced the breath from his lungs. “Bradley Carlin Ramsey, Lieutenant Commander, Earth Navy, retired, by the authority of Fleet Admiral Tamara Washington, you are hereby placed under arrest.”

  “I got the idea from the cuffs,” Carl replied with the limited air his lungs were being allowed until the lieutenant eased up and let him breathe. “But I’m not here for the arrest. I’ve got business to discuss with your captain. And if you don’t mind, I’ve got a busy schedule.”

  The wall rushed up to greet Carl as the lieutenant—who was heftier and more assertive than Carl remembered lieutenants being—shoved him again. “If the captain wants to see you, he’ll see you. That’s none of your business.”

  “Oof. OK, Quasimodo. Fine. Just enough of the judo. I’m hardly a threat to anyone here.”

  The lieutenant took him by the upper arm and towed Carl down the corridor as the rifle-toting mop-pushers fell into a defensive array around them. “From your rap sheet, we’d have been well within our rights to open fire the second you dropped out of astral. There’s a standing ‘do not engage’ order for deep space patrols out on you. Anything smaller than the Chesterfield would have been required to call for backup.”

  Carl twisted to look his captor in the face. “Now, you see, that would have been handy to know before now. All the time I spent avoiding customs patrols, and it turns out I could have herded them like a sheepdog.”

  With a rough jerk, the lieutenant forced Carl back facing forward. “I don’t know what your game is, Ramsey, but it’s not working on me. You don’t look half as tough as the warrants say you should be.”

  “I always talked a better game than I delivered,” Carl replied without a hint of offense. “But I’m not hiding my game here. I’m planning to cut a deal with your captain. I’ll be walking off this ship without wrist restraints, record clear, and an apology from you.”

  “Like hell. Captain Malcolm doesn’t cut deals with criminals.”

  Carl shrugged. “I’d make you a bet on it, but you don’t strike me as the betting sort.”

  The corridors of a destroyer were unfamiliar ground, and so Carl found himself lost in short order. He’d been aboard plenty of patrol ships and served aboard carriers and battleships. The middle ground of destroyers, frigates, and cruisers was of little concern to him professionally, and the mid-sized Earth Navy ships didn’t house Typhoon squadrons. If Carl was going to sneak off the Chesterfield, he was going to need a map.

  Once they arrived at the brig, one of the riflemen popped the door controls. The lieutenant shoved Carl inside a cell.

  “Aren’t you going to take off these cuffs?” Carl shouted as the door closed.

  Apparently not.

  Carl waited.

  The cell was barren, just stainless steel everything with a styroplast mattress and pillow for the cot. With his hands locked behind his back, he couldn’t even undo his pants to take a piss. Which was unfortunate, because for what he had in mind, reeking of his own urine would have been a disadvantage.

  Without a chrono, it was impossible to judge, but Carl guessed his wait was only ten or fifteen minutes. The door slid open, and the same lieutenant glowered through the opening. “Lucky day, Ramsey. Captain’s willing to see you.”

  Carl let loose a sigh of relief. “Great.” He settled in on the edge of his cot and straightened into a semblance of military bearing.

  “Up!” the lieutenant barked. “Captain doesn’t visit the brig. I’m escorting you to his state room.”

  Carl got up and headed out the door. The lieutenant grabbed him, and Carl prepared for another rough handling along the way. Then with a click, the cuffs opened and the handling ceased. He turned with his head cocked.

  “Captain’s orders,” the lieutenant grumbled. They were the last words spoken the rest of the way, though the junior officer kept casting suspicious glances over his shoulder the whole way.

  Was he expecting Carl to choke him from behind, steal a blaster, and fight his way off the ship? They were already heading right where Carl needed to be.

  The door to the stateroom bore a simple placard stating “Captain Jared Malcolm.” The lieutenant pressed the door alarm, and shortly after the chime, a stern voice called out, “Send him in.”

  Carl walked into a modest commanding officer’s suite. Malcolm was a captain in Earth Navy, after all, even if it was only a destroyer he commanded.

  Striding over to the captain’s office desk, Carl stood at attention and gave a proper naval salute.

  Captain Malcolm brought up a slow hand and mirrored that salute before standing and coming around the desk. All the while, Carl stood stock still, keeping his salute in place.

  “Fucking hell, Blackjack,” Malcolm said, shaking his head. “Don’t know how you fit those balls on that shitty little freighter of yours.” He stuck out a hand, and Carl shook it.

  “Thanks for seeing me, sir,” Carl replied. “Not a lot of officers in Sol space I could turn to.”

  “Damnedest thing watching you on that holovid racing series,” Malcolm said. “Almost enough to convince me to climb back into a Typhoon myself. Gotta say, you’d have kept yourself out of a helluva lot of trouble if you’d stuck with racing. Or stayed dead.”

  “Never been happier,” Carl countered politely. “I was bound to flame out in the public eye sooner or later. Besides, if I’d stayed dead, I wouldn’t have caught up on old times with Scarecrow.”

  A wry smile etched itself on Malcolm’s face as he circled back around to seat himself behind the desk. He motioned for Carl to pull up a chair. “Gotta say, I was surprised pulling up the dossier on your crew. That old squadron of yours turned into mercenaries and pirates in a damn hurry after you got swept out of the service. Didn’t expect Scarecrow to fall in with that sort of thing. She always seemed like a straight shooter, despite her psych profile.”

  “We’re getting married.”

  A blank expression met Carl’s revelation. Then Malcolm chuckled. “Don’t that beat all? Call signs and whatnot… easy to forget half the pilots are women beneath those flight suits. You two weren’t…?”

  “Not until we were retired,” Carl clarified. “A few years later, it’s easier to forget about forgetting the woman part. But that’s why I’m here.”

  Malcolm reached beneath his desk and pulled out a pair of glasses and a decanter. He filled both and slid one across to Carl. “You mentioned a deal. It’s really not policy to make deals. You’re only here because I wanted to know what became of the Blackjack Ramsey who used to terrorize the Eyndar and Zheen. Ever since that incident with the Bradbury, your ship’s had a fire-on-sight order for anything frigate and up.”

  “Thanks for not killing me,” Carl replied, raising his glass. “I think I can make this worth your while.” He took a cursory look at the amber liquid he held and threw it back in a gulp. Brandy, he decided, as it burned its way down his throat.

  “Like I said, I’m not here to make deals,” Malcolm said. “Think of this as a last meal sort of gentleman’s agreement. I’ll still have to take you in.”

  “I can deliver you the Odysseus.”

  Malcolm coughed and spluttered his glass of brandy. When he recovered the power of speech, he was incredulous. “The Odysseus was lost. Written off. A four-year investigation didn’t find it.”

  “They didn’t want to,” Carl said. “That was a cover-up by a high command that didn’t want to look bad losing a trillion-terra battleship.”

  “How did you find it?” Malcolm asked, leaning forward in his seat.

  Carl smirked. “Not relevant. Point
is, not even my crew knows what we found. I’ve blanked our computer records. I’m the sole source of this information.”

  The chair creaked as Malcolm leaned back and drummed his fingers on the arm. “All right, Blackjack. What are you after? You’ve got my attention, so you’d better make this good.”

  “Full pardons for my crew and a couple friends not with me at the moment.”

  “No deal.”

  Carl blinked. “What part of ‘trillion-terra battleship’ are you not processing?”

  “The part where I can hand you over to Earth Interstellar and have them get the intel out of you. Or your ship. Or your deleted files. They have ways of reconstructing computer damage.”

  In addition to being a friendly face along Sol’s border security perimeter, Jared Malcolm had been the executive officer who’d signed the transfer paperwork approving Squadron 333’s transfer to the ENV Odysseus. He was among the few who knew the project had even existed.

  Stretching across the desk, Carl helped himself to another glass of brandy. He used the time to silently fume and compose a backup offer. “OK. Play hardball. Here’s what I need. I’m getting married, like I said. Scarecrow—Amy, that is—insists on Earth. We’ve got a little chapel in Vegas Prime reserved, a rabbi lined up, and a maternity-friendly dress being delivered.”

  “Scarecrow is pregnant?” Malcolm asked as if the notion baffled him.

  “Amy is,” Carl stated. “My first child. So this is a little fucking important to me. Her mother lives on Earth in an assisted-care facility outside Phoenix. Can’t travel off world. Even Vegas is a hike. But for this one day, I’m giving the woman I love the only thing she’s asking for: a wedding with her mom there. Find a way to get me, say… a 72-hour reprieve to visit Earth, and I’ll get you the coordinates of your trillion-terra top-secret missing battleship.”

  “I’ll have to make a few comms,” Malcolm hedged.

  Carl’s solemn nod hid the giddy glee he felt beneath the surface. Let Malcolm run this up the chain of command. Turnover at the top of Earth Navy high command meant that the ass-protecting circle had broken. The potential for a high-value jump in weapons tech was worth letting a billion Carl Ramseys visit Earth. What Malcolm had on the table was crumbs.