Ghost Ship

by Kathryn Hoff

  Archer cast me a puzzled look. “How could you have known that, Davo?”

  “Because it weren’t no accident that I was out in a skimmer all alone when I found Grand Duchess orbiting that Shipkiller planet. I’d been hunting her, been sent to hunt her, ever since one of our frigates found her spying on a Troy settlement and knocked her into the Gloom.”

  “One of our frigates?” I wondered what I’d missed.

  “That’s right. I work for Troy intelligence. Always have. Hellbender and dodging tolls was just a cover, a damn useful one, too.”

  CHAPTER 24

  Intelligence

  Davo, a spy for Troy? My head was spinning.

  Davo lifted one side of his mouth in a sad smile. “Why d’ya think Squad Leader Bell don’t throw me out an airlock? She’s got orders. She knows who I am.” He stood a little straighter. “I got one skill—I can nav the Gloom. Don’t know how, don’t know why, but it means I can go places no one else dares go. I been putting that skill to use for Troy intelligence ever since I was a sprout.”

  Archer’s forehead wrinkled in confusion. “You’re not really a smuggler?”

  Davo grinned wide enough to show the gaps in his teeth. “Sure I am. All that toing and froing, slipping supplies for one side or the other past the barricades on the Ribbon Road? It gave me a way to snoop around Barony, and an excuse to hightail it back to Troy whenever I got a bit of good info. I’d play the restless soul, go off from time to time in my skimmer, pick up a tidbit here and there to pass on back to my handlers.”

  “So, when you found Duchess, her crew still alive…?”

  “I knew where she’d been, and I knew she carried information that would hurt Troy bad. So I let nature take its course, so to speak. Left Duchess where she couldn’t do no harm, meaning to lead Troy forces to her once I was sure she couldn’t fight back. Only Barony captured Hellbender before I could finish the job.”

  If my hand had been free, I would have been scratching my head, trying to fit the pieces together. Duchess had carried more than information—she had a synthreactor. But according to Davo, she hadn’t been on her way to a secret Barony colony, she’d been returning to Barony after rooting around in Troy territory, spying. Raiding.

  She must have stolen the synthreactor from Troy.

  Did Davo even know about the synthreactor hidden in Duchess’s bulkhead? I was betting he did—the man was twisty as a snake. He’d been snooping around Duchess the same way he’d snooped around Sparrow, looking for her secret caches.

  Being so close to that bilge rat made me want to take a shower. Just as well my hands were still tied—I might have beat him to a pulp.

  “What happened when Barony took Hellbender?” Archer asked.

  “Ah, our luck ran out that day.” Davo shook his grizzled head. “The Hellbender crew are a bunch of damn pirates, no patriotism involved. Good mates all, but when you deal with the devil, you got to expect a little hell, right? Still, they was my crew. It broke my heart to see ’em treated so bad. Those Barony bastards—they’re awful cruel to their prisoners of war.”

  “I guess it didn’t hurt you enough to give up Duchess, though,” I said.

  “Huh. I slipped one day. Delirious I was, after one of their beatings, trying to get me to tell ’em how to nav the Gloom. I couldn’t begin to tell ’em, I can’t even explain it to myself. But somehow I let slip that I seen Grand Duchess. After that, that was all they wanted to know about, and they about broke me and hurt my crew worse, trying to make me tell them.”

  Archer twitched a hand. “You could have saved your friends from all that. I would have.”

  “Had to make a choice, didn’t I? My life and the lives of eight pirates weighed against the thousands of Troy citizens who would die if Barony got their hands on Duchess? ’Tweren’t a hard choice at all.”

  “Why did they let you go, then?” I asked.

  “The bastards couldn’t break me. They saw I’d druther die than give them what they wanted. They figured if they let me go and set some of my crew to follow me, that would be their best chance to find the ship.”

  “If you knew they were following, you should have just disappeared,” Archer said. “Instead, you took the bait, played into their hands.”

  Davo gave Archer a calculating look. “Is that so hard to understand? I’m dying. I wanted to do one last thing for Troy before I go. I figured that would make it all worthwhile, towing the Barony spy ship into a Troy port with her records as proof she’d invaded Troy space. That would let everyone know what the high-and-mighty Barony really get up to. Make ’em pay a ransom to get their dead ones back.”

  Liar. He wanted to bring the Troy’s stolen synthreactor home.

  I was starting to get a very bad suspicion. “There’s no reward from Troy, is there? All that bilge about fifty thousand for us…”

  He shrugged. “I needed help, and you were to hand.”

  All that work, all that risk, and Davo never had any intention of paying us.

  “Why us?” Archer asked. “Why not just get your Troy friends to salvage Duchess?”

  “They woulda had to go through Barony space to get to her. I needed a neutral party, somebody who wouldn’t draw attention. And if you still had the synthreactor aboard, I figured I would suss it out on the way.”

  Neutral? I wanted to kill the burzing spy. “You put that coin in my pocket, didn’t you?”

  “Figured you needed a little extra incentive to come with me, instead of hightailing it out to the jump gate. A little bit of irony, to take the warning Barony presented me with the day they let me go, and gift it to you.”

  The airlock door jerked open. Squad Leader Bell glowered at us. “Mzee Davo? Have you finished yet? We need to get back on course.”

  “I’ll get us on course,” Davo said. “As soon as these two understand that they’ve got to help me. You need to get back on the derelict, boyo.”

  “No thanks,” Archer muttered. “I’ve been on that ship twice. It hasn’t worked out well.”

  Davo raised the stunner to a more threatening angle. “Get up. You nudged those rockets back to life once. Now you’ll go back over there and do it again and follow my course.”

  Archer raised his thin frame to his full height. “What if I don’t? You don’t have the power or the crew to cope with Grand Duchess on your own. Lili said this current will take us to Barony. All we have to do is wait. The Barony militia will pick us up and we’ll be treated like heroes.”

  I wanted to kick him, but I wasn’t in reach.

  Squad Leader Bell spun on Davo. “Is that correct? Is this current taking us to Barony?”

  He nodded.

  Bell pushed Davo aside and stood nose-to-nose with Archer. “Listen, bilge rat. If we hit Barony space, I will destroy the derelict and this cruiser and everyone aboard, including you and your ugly wife, before I see them captured. So you will cooperate.”

  Bell’s crew exchanged wide-eyed glances.

  Ancestors! This was spinning out of control fast.

  Though it made me sick, it was time to make a deal with the devil.

  I took a step forward. “There’s no need for extreme action, Squad Leader. Davo explained the situation to us. You’re concerned that Duchess’s records might contain information harmful to Troy’s interests. All you need to do is erase the records and cut the derelict loose. Put me and Archer back aboard her, and we’ll take our chances with the currents. And if the cruiser’s not hampered by Duchess, Davo can guide your squad home safely.”

  “You’d like that, wouldn’t you?” Davo said. “We’ll put you aboard Duchess all right, but it’ll be under guard, and you’ll help take her to Troy. See, Barony really do love their dead heroes, and with Grand Duchess in hand, Troy will have more leverage than we’ve ever had against the bastards. Now suit up.”

  Interesting that he hadn’t mentioned the synthreactor hidden aboard Duchess. He had to know about it—that would have been a big part of why Troy had sent
him to find Grand Duchess instead of just letting her stay lost in the Gloom. It would be why he was willing to take so much risk to bring Duchess to Troy more or less intact.

  Maybe the synthreactor was something Bell and her squad didn’t know about. Should I offer to show Davo where it was hidden? I decided not. As long as he didn’t know where the synthreactor was hidden, he’d need to keep Duchess in one piece—and keep me and Archer alive to man her.

  When Archer looked to me, I nodded. “I think the squad leader’s serious about preferring death to capture. We’d better help get Duchess turned around.” I raised my bound hands to touch my nose, our signal for be ready. And I hoped Davo didn’t remember that signal.

  After a moment, Archer bobbed his head. “If you say so. Duchess will need a couple of fresh power mods, though. The ones we had were pretty well drained.”

  Bell sighed. “All right. Babs, you go with them and keep an eye on them. If either of them tries anything funny, stun the woman.”

  Once again, I floated slowly down Grand Duchess’s dark passages. Archer swam ahead of me and our guard Babs stayed behind us, his stunner in his glove.

  Our helmet lamps cast weird, elongated shadows as Archer and I each tugged a power mod, carefully dampening their velocity as we maneuvered them around corners. The only sounds came from our breathing.

  Stark hatred seemed to ooze from the bulkheads. Enemy militia aboard—destroy them!

  I shook my head to clear it. Troy wasn’t my enemy. But the urge to take Grand Duchess out of Troy hands was frighteningly strong. Or maybe just frightening. The Barony ghosts’ desire for revenge was powerful indeed—powerful enough to survive death, and to invade my thoughts even when I was wide awake.

  The current was taking Grand Duchess toward Barony—that thought seemed to add a glimmer of grim satisfaction to the spirits’ bitter aura. They would do everything they could to keep the Troy crew from diverting Duchess from her home-bound course.

  And this time, I was wholly in agreement with them.

  Davo, bolstered by another stim, had reboarded Mudpuppy to grapple her onto Duchess’s port side. With the cruiser pulling Grand Duchess at starboard, Mudpuppy pulling on the port side, and Duchess’s maneuvering rockets between them, he expected to have enough power to turn the derelict onto the course for Troy.

  I hoped to Zub that Sparrowhawk would find us before that happened.

  As I passed the door to engineering, I kicked off the frame, propelling myself into Archer. I grabbed the arm of his enviro suit and pulled him to me, hard enough that we went spinning toward the ceiling.

  “Hey, watch what you’re doing,” the guard said.

  “Oh! I’m sorry. Are you all right, honey?”

  Behind the helmet glass, Archer’s eyes widened in astonishment. Flipping off the com, my faceplate touching his, I said, “Slow down. Stall.”

  Both eyebrows went up but he nodded. Using the com, he said, “I’m fine, sweetie. You’re not hurt, are you?”

  I gritted my teeth to say, “No, pumpkin. I’m all right, as long as we’re together.”

  “Belay that malarkey, boyo,” Davo groused from Mudpuppy. “How long will it take you to get those rockets going?”

  “Give us time,” I said. “We have to pull the spent cells.”

  While the guard fidgeted, I dawdled over disengaging the spent cells from the modified bays.

  Stalling just felt like the right thing to do, hoping against hope that something would turn up to keep us from turning back toward enemy territory.

  Not my enemies, I corrected myself. And our survival was more important than protecting Duchess from our—from her enemies.

  “So, Davo,” I called into the mic. “What about Charity? If there isn’t any reward, then there’s nothing for her, either.”

  “I don’t worry about Charity none,” Davo drawled. “She’s like her ma. She’s pretty enough—she’ll find someone to take care of her, even without a pile of rhollium.”

  “That’s cold,” Archer said. “She’s your daughter.”

  “Maybe. I was hoping she’d inherited the instinct to sail the Gloom like me—I’d have made her a new spy for Troy and we could have worked the Gloom together. She don’t have it, though. She’s mine, I can’t deny that, but she’s got no more talent for the Gloom than a cat.”

  Good luck for her, then, I thought. She dodged being turned into a tool for Troy. Archer was right, Davo didn’t deserve to be a father to a nice girl like Charity.

  I stopped in mid-float. “What do you mean, you would have worked the Gloom together? I thought you were on your last legs.”

  Davo’s wheezing laugh came through the mic. “Oh, I ain’t dying yet. A little lung inflammation is all. A few more days on meds and I’ll be fine.”

  Archer jerked his head up, sending him backward. “But you fainted!”

  The guard raised his stunner. “Get back to work.”

  Since he wasn’t working, I was taking a strong dislike to Babs the guard. I fiddled with the spent power mod, parking it in an empty niche.

  “I just needed a little time to regroup,” Davo said. “I’d counted on talking Kwame into helping me—I had to adjust my strategy a little. A bit of good luck for me—Kwame mighta been a tad difficult, seein’ as how we didn’t exactly part on the best of terms. Now quit yammering and get those engines running.”

  Papa’s death, and Davo saw it as a bit of good luck. How I wanted to get my hands on the backburning slug.

  “Don’t load the mod yet,” Archer said. “Let me check the connections.” He wriggled inside the empty bay. “I was afraid of that. It’s all gunked up with ash. Hand me the electrostatic cleaner.”

  Archer killed some time over cleaning the connections while I pulled the second spent mod. All the while, Archer kept up a lecture about the need for cleanliness in the engine room. Considering the half-burned out state of Duchess’s engineering section, it was almost funny.

  Davo’s com broke in. “Damnit, boyo! I could build an engine faster than you’re working. Get those burzing rockets online.”

  Nothing else to wait for. I nodded to Archer.

  He activated the console. “All right. We have two rockets working. Find seats and strap in.”

  Davo gave commands, now sounding much more like a militia member than a roving pirate. “Squad Leader? Heading seven-one by nine-four, ten-second burn, on my mark.”

  “Cruiser ready.”

  “Activate rockets.”

  With no grav control, the course change tugged at my limbs. The Troy crewman Babs grimaced and grunted. I took deep breaths to settle my nausea.

  After a long ten seconds, the burn ended, releasing us into weightlessness again.

  “That’s it, boyo. Now a minor adjust, four-four by oh-two, two seconds.”

  Another short burn from the maneuvering rockets. My head ached from the inertial tug-of-war.

  “Steady now,” Davo warned. “There’ll be some bumps when we leave the stream.”

  I felt bumps, yes, but not the bumps of ether eddies.

  Bang, bang, bang. Something rattled through the com like the hand of the dead on the inside of a coffin lid. That was artillery!

  Kojo’s hail sounded through coms. “Troy cruiser, that was just a warning. We have no quarrel with Troy militia, but you’re holding two of my crew. Release them unharmed and release that Barony vessel, and you can go on your way.”

  Troy voices talked and cursed over one another. “Where did that ship…? Burzing pirate, crept up behind the derelict…”

  I switched my mic to the hailing channel. “Kojo, we’re on Duchess.”

  “Archer, razzle!” I pushed off toward the ceiling to attract the guard’s attention, hoping Archer would understand the cue.

  Guard Babs raised his stunner toward me.

  Archer shoved him hard enough to drive Babs toward the bulkhead—and with opposite and equal force, driving himself into the consoles.

  Reaching the ceili
ng, I cushioned my force with my bent arms, then pushed myself downward, slamming into the guard’s back.

  Damn. He fell on his stunner, where I couldn’t get at it. As I bounced back toward the ceiling, I called, “Archer, get out. Hide!”

  Archer was busy pinballing between power mod bays and bulkheads. He called back, “Brace!”

  I grabbed at the door frame. As Archer passed the console, he reached out a hand to the rocket controls.

  We fell in a heap—or rather, the deck zoomed upward to meet us as the rocket burst forced Duchess toward zenith.

  It lasted only a second, then we were weightless again. Babs, Archer, and I floated off the deck, each of us swimming, grabbing, pushing to get to the drifting stunner.

  The coms squawked with confusion: Davo shouting to get back on course, Bell ordering propulsion, Kojo making threats, the guard grunting—or maybe that was Archer.

  In our flailing, three-way race to seize the stunner, Babs was winning, his gloved hand almost touching the grip.

  I grabbed the only thing within reach—Archer—and shoved him forward, toward the stunner and the door. “Go!”

  Archer shot forward yelling, “Yi yi yi.”

  The recoil shoved me back against the power mod bays, but I’d achieved something—Archer’s windmilling arms snagged the stunner as he disappeared into the passage.

  “Patch? What are you doing?” Kojo yelled into the hailer. “Archer?”

  “Busy,” I called back.

  The guard scrambled upward, trying to reposition himself to go after Archer.

  Bracing myself against the bay housing, I jerked one of the heavy mods free.

  Babs hit the ceiling and gathered his feet under him to launch himself out the door.

  I shoved the power mod into a trajectory to smash into the guard. What was it Archer had said? Kinetic energy is proportional to something to do with mass and velocity—meaning a lot more mass has a lot more force when it hits.

  The module hit Babs with a satisfying amount of force.