Persephone

by Blaze Ward

  All eyes turned to a mousy woman in the center of the group.

  “How big is your team?” he asked starkly.

  This was their first challenge. They had surrendered, but only to barbarians, and lies told to those people didn’t count.

  Except Granville Veitengruber was speaking accentless Mongolian to them. And carrying himself like a Warrior. Old socialization patterns would activate.

  “Nineteen,” she said warily. “With a ship’s crew of eighty-one and two hundred seventeen medical staff aboard.”

  Granville nodded at her.

  “Should I arrange to have the nineteen sent to the surface immediately?” he asked.

  Interestingly, the security woman’s eyes went to Dr. Au, rather than the Director with no name. Granville watched the silent byplay.

  “Treated well and sent home afterwards?” she clarified.

  “We have other prisoners already who will be,” he said flatly. “The Fribourg Empire is more civilized than The Holding in that regard.”

  Another blush. Nobody liked being lectured by barbarians about their own supposed shortcomings. Especially not ethical ones, in a society that claimed to exemplify the highest ethical standards possible.

  “There are perhaps a handful that would bear watching,” she said carefully. “With a like number of standard crew, as well.”

  “You and I will talk later,” he replied carefully. “With Dr. Au present. I would rather eliminate temptation and let the planet have the troublemakers now with my apologies, rather than have to kill the entire crew while putting down any attempt at mutiny.”

  Every face went white at those words. As he had intended.

  Carrot. Stick.

  On Abakn, his choice had been to work, or starve. Mansi was probably the same, with the added benefit of no trade or resupply, except what the wardens in their kremlin allowed.

  Let these fine folks know that they had choices. Rats will flee violence, as long as they can. It was only when cornered that they got dangerous.

  “Who flies this vessel?” he asked the group.

  “I am the Pilot,” the man with no name snapped.

  “You were the Director of ship-side,” Granville corrected. “I doubt you calculated orbits and drift. And you will be silent or I will stuff you into a lifepod right now and let the planet have you.”

  One of the men raised his hand quaintly.

  “I was in charge of flight operations, Your Grace,” he said meekly.

  “Do you wish to continue?” Granville asked.

  The man shrugged.

  “Yes, Your Grace,” he finally said.

  “Good,” Granville decided, pointing. “Everyone to your stations. Dr. Au, you two over there, watched by Spier. Comm officer, open a channel to Persephone. Put it on conference mode for everyone to hear.”

  A moment of frightened stillness, and then bodies exploded into motion, watching screens and pressing buttons.

  “Uhm, Persephone here,” Isiah’s voice came back unsteadily.

  “Veitengruber, checking in,” he said. “Back off to a safe distance and continue your watch, Sailor. I might be sending lifepods to the surface, so tell the gunners to ignore them. I will clear with you before we send a shuttle.”

  Silent threat: we might have blown them up, like uncivilized people. Or captured them in the act of trying to escape. Obvious carrot: jumping into a pod now would get you safely away from the pirates. Marooned here, but safe.

  Granville just hoped there was a big enough cattle ranch below to take them all to, so they might get a chance to experience the utter hell that had been his life for many years, but he had a small soul.

  “Roger that, sir,” Isiah replied.

  “The line is dead, Director,” a tall, redheaded woman on the far left said nervously.

  “Correct,” Granville replied. “Message delivered. Our cultures are different.”

  “Yes, sir,” she said.

  “Nav officer, Persephone will be detaching from our airlock on autopilot and moving to an escort position off our port flank,” he announced. “Maintain your current course, elevation, heading, and status until ordered otherwise.”

  “Yes, Your Grace,” the man looked up and nodded, focused intently on doing absolutely nothing. And doing it well.

  Granville turned to Dr. Au and her sidekick. He smiled at the man.

  “Would you like a lifepod now?” Granville asked. “Or should we wait until I have enough crew picked out to fly you all down in the administrative shuttle?”

  “I will depart with my loyal crew,” the man snapped, still carefully not gesturing.

  “Good enough,” Granville said. “Security officer, take Spier with you and place this man in a holding cell or isolated cabin. Lock down all communications to isolate him further, and then notify the kitchen to deliver meals to the chamber when the rest of the crew is fed.”

  “Acknowledged, sir,” the woman stood again.

  She gestured politely to Spier, and less so to the old man, moving them back out of the chamber and leaving him alone with Sam Au and the bridge crew.

  “Now what?” the Doctor asked after the room had fallen to silence.

  “Now we wait,” he said. “My support team will arrive shortly and we will reorganize things more fully.”

  “The administrative shuttles can hold eighteen each,” she offered.

  “Then hopefully, we will only need one flight,” Granville answered. “I would like to think that most of you have some level of human compassion left in you.”

  He made a note of which faces smiled, which blushed, and which scowled. Right now, it was him against the entire crew.

  Cleanup Crew (January 4, 403)

  Trinidad nearly laughed out loud.

  “I can’t believe he went and did this to me,” he heard Siobhan grumble again under her breath, as the two of them were looking out Anna’s cockpit window at the big hospital ship, trailing like a little remora. One of 405’s shuttles was just about to undock from the primary airlock, and then it would be their turn.

  “You’re upset?” Stunt Dude replied, grinning. “I was all set to pull off a boarding action to make Packmule look tame. Then he goes and gets them to surrender instead of running off to where we could ambush them.”

  That brought a small smile to her face, after the scowls. She had been there with him.

  Capturing Packmule in deep space had been the most insane thing ever. Blink-jumping Anna across six light-seconds. Free jumping across deep space. Latching on and boarding them secretly in the middle of nowhere.

  Taking a fleeing hospital in deep space would have been another level of crazy for the books.

  The other shuttle finished its task and backed away finally.

  He watched Siobhan maneuver in, lining things up and establishing a hardlock so the airlock doors could open.

  “All yours,” she said, but Stunt Dude was already gone, out of his chair with a wave and down the stairs. Down in the hall, bodies were packed too tightly to move, but only aft of the airlock, with everybody down in the cargo hold and lined up on the stairs.

  “Open her up,” Trinidad ordered as he spotted Nakisha at the lock door.

  He joined her a moment later as the hatch began to beep.

  Vlad greeted them on the other side, part of the earlier team from CS-405 that had boarded.

  “All clear, Stunt Dude,” he said with a grin.

  “Roger that,” Trinidad replied.

  There was one of the other ship’s crew standing next to Vlad nervously. She was tiny, compared to the big marine, and looked a little overwhelmed.

  “Take this man to the bridge,” Vlad said slowly and carefully. His accent was bad, but the words were clear enough.

  She bobbed her head to Vlad, then to Trinidad, and then scampered forward.

  Trinidad turned back after three steps.

  “Nakisha, with me,” he said. “The rest of you line up with previous teams and take over watc
hes. Engineering folks stay especially alert for saboteurs.”

  Assents, and then he was moving forward, trailing the small woman who kept stopping to look back and make sure he was with her as they went forward and up.

  The bridge looked almost like a mirror of Packmule when they got there. Maybe a little larger, befitting a bigger crew, but the same otherwise. Able-Spacer Spier was standing guard, but the only others in the room were existing crew. They were nervously twitchy, but not dangerous, except perhaps to themselves.

  “Where’s Granville?” he asked as his escort stood to one side, rocking her weight back and forth.

  “Forward conference room B-2,” Spier said, directing her words to the crewwoman. “Please deliver this man to the Director.”

  Again, the bobbing nod and churning feet. Trinidad had to stretch his legs to keep up as she went back the way they had come, stopping at about twenty meters up the hallway and standing to one side as she opened a hatch, bowing at the waist.

  These folks were a little too much, as near as he could tell, but apparently Veitengruber had put a genuine fear of God himself into them, which was impressive, since they only worshipped Buran.

  Inside, he found Granville and Andre, along with Kam and an incredibly attractive local woman who seemed to just float atop of all the madness that had infected the rest of the crew.

  “Stunt Dude, this is Doctor Au Aqal Corven Sam,” Granville said as he and Nakisha entered.

  She rose with as much grace as she had beauty.

  “Stunt Dude?” she asked, holding her hand out.

  “Centurion Trinidad Mildon,” he corrected with a smile. “Security Chief of CS-405 and Task Force Barnaul. The crew occasionally refer to me as Stunt Dude, due to a previous career working in movies.”

  “I see,” she nodded, perhaps with a twinkle in her eyes.

  They sat, him across from the doctor and close enough to Andre Gave to feel the man’s nervous tension.

  “So I’ve already basically arrested and quarantined the original Director,” Veitengruber began as he and Nakisha sat down. “He was going to be a pain in Andre’s ass, any way we went, and it wasn’t worth it. I’ve also suggested to Dr. Au and the local head of security that we identify the other dozen or so troublemakers and send them all to the ground, right now. Thoughts?”

  “Is the number going to be that small?” Trinidad fired back, studying the woman’s face for clues. “Do we dump the entire ship’s crew and stock with our own people? Once we leave, the options come down to locking them in cabins or spacing them.”

  Not that he would, but if they thought that was an option, he figured they’d be nicer to Andre on the way. Once he had a chance to interview some of them, they’d know if these folks were safe with Imperials.

  She blushed. Hard. In a cute way. The bones in her face were broad and almost flat, but the shoulders were narrow, making her head look almost oversized.

  “You act like we’re barbarians,” she tried to counter.

  “You are,” Veitengruber snarled. “At least until proven otherwise. I’ve lived among you for many years.”

  Deeper blush this time. Went all the way down her neck and vanished under her top.

  “Some of the crew will likely be a problem, yes,” she agreed, demure and careful. “I won’t dispute that, and I’m sure we can identify them and safely remove them now, rather than resorting to extreme measures. This is a hospital ship.”

  “How much gerontology experience does your staff have?” Andre spoke up suddenly.

  The man’s voice had gone from the normal, almost whine Trinidad had listened to for the last three weeks, into a deeper, more focused tone. This was Andre before Packmule, when he was just a nurse having to deal with even-more-whiny patients with the sniffles.

  Firm. Stubborn. Intense.

  “Some,” Dr. Au’s eyes got a little flittery, blinking too rapidly and shuttling back and forth as she accessed mental files.

  “All of your patients will be men,” Andre’s suddenly-implacable voice rang. “Between the ages of young adult and dead from old age. I expect they have had some access to their medical personnel, but almost no medicines or advanced technology. We do not know how many there are, nor how many we can transport. What is the bed count on your ship?”

  That seemed to stabilize her. Get to the technical side of things. The eyes focused on Andre, ignoring him, Nakisha, and Veitengruber, all of whom she probably saw as bad cops.

  As she should.

  “We are configured for one thousand, two hundred patients at present,” she said, her voice losing some of the ragged edges. “With four surgical theaters. The Lander also contains six surgical theaters and recovery facilities, plus two dentists. In a catastrophe, we can break out enough beds to handle three thousand patients for a short period.”

  “This will be longer, Doctor Au,” Andre said. “From our target, the plan is to return to Imperial space as close to directly as we can, but that will still take weeks of sailing to reach the closest fleet base. How seriously do you and your people take your Hippocratic Oath?”

  That last question sounded almost like a biblical patriarch, seeing the Face of God and forever changed.

  “At least as seriously as you,” she challenged.

  “That’s on your head, Doctor,” Andre said simply. “I’ve already treated several citizens of The Holding. All of them are in excellent health and will return to their own lives when we’re done here.”

  Her chin came up, almost defiantly. Trinidad wasn’t smitten, but damn, was she cute when she did that.

  “If they are prisoners of war, then they attacked one of our worlds and were captured in the process,” she stated.

  “No,” Veitengruber rumbled ominously.

  She turned to face him, eyes growing hot.

  “No?” she asked tartly, emotion starting to get the better of her.

  “The ship I command was formerly a police cutter in Imperial Service,” Veitengruber ground out the words like a blacksmith pounding red hot steel. “Those ships do not serve with fleets, but protect Imperial worlds. They are customs enforcers for internal security. There were six of them at the junkyard we raided. All of those were taken from Imperial space by your warships raiding our systems. Your hands are not clean, Doctor.”

  And, back to the blush. Trinidad decided to derail things, before the emotions got fully out of control.

  “So we’re here,” he said, leaning forward. “We’re going somewhere else and picking up a bunch of old and possibly broken men, so we can take them home. Are your people going to help, or hinder? Their ransom is on your head, Doctor Au.”

  Those pretty green eyes narrowed as she focused on him. Trinidad smiled the kind of smile a dragoon like him practiced in the mirror, for dealing with new marines, fresh out of boot camp, who thought they were all that.

  Long pause this time. Maybe finally paying attention. Doing the math in her head.

  “Most of them will be doctors and nurses first, and patriots second,” she said. “The Centurion has already identified the ship’s Director, Ro Calla Dyen Mak, as a probable instigator. A few others will probably be too sullen to count. Possibly three of the nineteen security forces.”

  “Only three?” Trinidad asked. “That seems low.”

  “These are not Warriors, Stunt Dude,” she countered, softening finally. “When we land on the surface of a planet, they keep watch on equipment, and check identities at portals. Most of them are probably more comfortable helping little, old ladies across the street, to quote the ancient saying. That is why I hire them. Ship’s crew is a different group, as they are permanently attached to the hull and under Director Ro. I hire everyone else. They answer to me.”

  “And you will answer to me,” Andre Gave, Ancient Prophet, said. “I will command this vessel and this crew. The Dragoon will answer to me. Your people will answer to me. We are on a mercy mission here, but at the end of the day, we are all human, and I will expect t
hem to display human empathy.”

  “And when all of this is done?” she turned to Andre. It was like a spotlight in Trinidad’s face had gone out. “What then? We will be deep behind enemy lines and prisoners. What guarantees do we have that the tables will not be reversed, with my crew kept in prisons for the rest of their lives?”

  “I will personally escort you to the border, Doctor,” Veitengruber replied. “Load our crew onto my vessel, and send the rest of you home. My word as a Gentleman and Imperial officer.”

  “And if your superiors do not agree?” she snapped.

  Trinidad couldn’t remember ever seeing Veitengruber actually smile. Scowl a lot. Pensive most of the time. Angry, like now.

  But he was smiling. And that smile turned to encompass the rest of them.

  “Then I guess we’ll have to stage a jailbreak,” he said. “We are pirates, after all.”

  Trinidad grinned back and nodded.

  Preparation (January 27, 403)

  Andre was on the bridge of the ship Phil had renamed RAN Forgotten Mercy. There was already an RAN Mercy in Republic service, somewhere. Idly, Andre wondered if he really wanted to move up and command it, one of these days. The last three weeks had been an even greater crash course than service on Packmule with Heather.

  Here, he was in charge. All the fuck-ups were his to own.

  Nothing like possibly getting Court Martialed for doing something wrong aboard a ship you stole from someone else fair and square.

  At least they were home. Or as home as Lighthouse Station could be.

  “Gan,” Andre called out. “What’s the neighborhood look like?”

  Andre wasn’t the least bit interested in the whole four-name-in-reverse thing that Buran did to name and socialize people. After three days, he called them all by their personal name. Easier that way.

  “We’re last in, Andre,” the woman replied, also comfortable enough not to call him Director first. “Flagship is in high orbit. Packmule is lower. The other two have already landed on the planet below. Permission to send out a ping?”